November 20, 1998

After a two-and-a-half-year delay caused by funding problems and controversy over the legacy of Sigmund Freud, an exhibition tracing the influence of the man and psychoanalysis on 20th-century culture opened at the Library of Congress on October 15. "Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture" will have a three-month stay in Washington, D.C., then travel to the Jewish Museum in New York and the Sigmund Freud Museum and Austrian National Library in Vienna. It may also go to California and Brazil.

The exhibition incorporates critiques of Freud's ideas as a response to a debate stirred by Freud critics who thought the show should include negative responses to the psychoanalyst's thought.

The exhibition features more than 170 photographs, films, manuscripts, letters, and documents, as well as first editions of many publications from the library's collection of more than 80,000 Freud items donated over the past four decades by the Sigmund Freud Archive. Items loaned by the Freud Museum in London and the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna also appear in the exhibition.

APA supported the idea of creating the exhibition from the beginning, and APA President Rodrigo Muņoz, M.D., said he is pleased to see it open.

"Sigmund Freud is an integral part of American psychiatry," he said. "His followers have made major contributions, and even his detractors admit that he was the man who taught us to talk with our patients."

The exhibition, said Harold Blum, M.D., director of the Sigmund Freud Archives and a clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University, "quite successfully portrays the man along with his life and work."

Blum, the initiator of the exhibition, said it demonstrates the impact of Freud's thought on society and culture. "He gave us the first rational explanation of the development of personality and the importance of unconscious conflict in terms of understanding psychiatric disease and human development," Blum noted. "He showed how we control and channel our unconscious conflicts into useful institutional structures."

Freud's broad influence on psychiatry, medicine, art, literature, and the study of history is portrayed in the exhibition through cartoons, music, books, and videos, he added.

The exhibition demonstrates that not only has Freud had a great influence on our culture, said Blum, but also he has contributed to our language. Words like "repression," "regression," "projection," "denial," and "Freudian slip" have become a part of everyday speech.

The exhibition is divided into three parts: "Formative Years," "The Individual: Theory and Therapy," and "From the Individual to Society." The first section begins with Freud's formative years in late 19th-century Vienna, emphasizing points of contact between Freud's intellectual development and major political and cultural events. Highlights include family photographs, correspondence, early work in neurology, and items documenting his early medical career.

In the second section, visitors can learn about key concepts in psychoanalytic theory such as the interpretation of dreams and repression, and how Freud used those concepts in treating his patients. This second section includes manuscripts in Freud's hand, a model of Freud's consulting couch, the chair from which he conducted analytic sessions, and the death mask of the Wolf Man, one of his well-known patients.

The third section shows how Freud applied his ideas of individual human psychology to understand the dynamics of society and culture. It explores his theories of the violent origin of civilization and his understanding of the function of religion, art, and science in contemporary society. Critical reception to his ideas and treatments are addressed in this section, as well as the diffusion of Freud's ideas in professional psychoanalysis. The section also portrays the diversity of post-Freudian analysis and the influence of his ideas on a variety of cultural arenas, from the arts to the sciences. Throughout the exhibition, a variety of objects as well as commercial film and television clips demonstrate the presence of psychoanalysis in popular culture.

The earlier controversy (Psychiatric News, January 5, 1996, and April 5, 1996), which was fueled by Freud critics who wished to see more critical interpretations included in the exhibition, was partly addressed when guest curator and cultural historian Michael Roth decided to represent some of the critics by displaying a series of quotes on display panels that refute or amplify manuscripts below them. Earlier critics such as Wittgenstein, Nabokov, and Germaine Greer were also included in the exhibition. Roth had wanted to end the show with a section called "Contested Legacies" highlighting the ongoing debate, but other advisors wanted the exhibition to focus on portraying Freud's thought rather than the conflict over his ideas.

The controversy over the exhibition ultimately influenced it in minor ways, said Blum. "There are more references to those who were critical of Freud, but the exhibit is designed to show Freud's thought and the evolution of his ideas." Funding problems that delayed the opening of the exhibition for almost two years were resolved successfully with donations from a variety of sources, including Discovery Communications; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Vienna; the Austrian Cultural Institute, New York; Alfred Knopf; the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress; and the Mary S. Sigourney Award Trust

The Library of Congress, in cooperation with Alfred A. Knopf, is publishing a companion volume that includes a range of views about psychoanalysis and its place in contemporary culture.

"The importance of the Library of Congress exhibition on Freud and its extensive press coverage," said Leon Hoffman, M.D., chair of the Committee on Public Information for the American Psychoanalytic Association, "is that it demonstrates to a wide audience that Freud is not an idol to be worshipped or to be destroyed, but that Freudian ideas, particularly the power of unconscious thoughts and feelings, continue to be relevant in addressing contemporary issues that affect both the individual and society in general."

Selections from the exhibition are shown on the Library of Congress Web site at lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/freud/.