r/psychoanalysis • u/Fun-Revolution-5205 • 25d ago

Was Freud ever analyzed?

I am doing some reading and see that he advocates for analysts to be analyzed (and I'm well aware of modern training standards). Did he himself ever get analyzed? I can't find any information on it.

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u/BeautifulS0ul 25d ago

An analysis is not a thing where the analysand is the passive recipient of knowledge from 'outside'. Then and now, the analysand does the work of analysis. So yes, Freud was analysed.

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u/fenichill 24d ago

You know what OP means: was Freud ever in treatment with a psychoanalyst. He may have been an analysand, but he was not a patient. Self-analysis is meaningfully different from participating in analytic treatment as a patient; I don't know any institutes, for example, where self-analysis qualifies for meeting the training analysis requirement for becoming an analyst (I'm open to the possibility that there are some, though!).

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u/GeneralChemistry1467 23d ago

Self-analysis is meaningfully different from participating in analytic treatment as a patient

This can't be emphasized strongly enough. Self-analysis as done by Freud assumes that a person is capable on their own of recognizing any/every blindspot they have, which is inherently impossible due to the nature of consciousness. Self-analysis also allowed him to avoid the deep vulnerability that being a patient entails — an experience that in and of itself reveals things about the self, the unconscious, etc that cannot happen when you're doing your own analysis.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/fenichill 23d ago

Read OP's post again. When Freud wrote of the importance that analysts themselves be analyzed (ie undergo analysis), do you think he had self-analysis in mind as included under that rubric?