Dreaming by the book : a history of Freud's The interpretation of dreams and the psychoanalytic movement

More than a hundred years after their first publication, Freud's theories of dream interpretation occupy a firm place in the canon of Western thought.

Since "The Interpretation of Dreams" appeared in 1899, a significant psychoanalytic movement has grown out of the multiple processes detailed within Freud's essential and foundational text.

Lydia Marinelli and Andreas Mayer offer a historical and sociological investigation of the changes dream interpretation underwent between 1899 and 1930, a period of time over which eight different editions of the book were produced.

In this study, Mayer and Marinelli systematically emphasize the involvement of those readers who have not been taken into consideration or have been insufficiently accounted for in the editions to date: the critics, colleagues and patients who formed the audience for each edition of the study as it appeared.

The authors provide arguments toward the case that psychoanalytic theory is the outcome of collective and conflictual processes, revealing that "The Interpretation of Dreams" is inextricably intertwined with the formation of the psychoanalytic movement and its bifurcations. The book is supplemented by unpublished texts and correspondence, including two works by Otto Rank, a text by Sigmund Freud's brother Alexander and letters from Eugen Bleuler and Alphonse Maeder.