Abstract
This article proposes a contribution to psychoanalytic historiography by revisiting Freud’s founding texts, The history of the psychoanalytic movement, published in 1914, searching in it for the first clues on how to operate at the interface between psychoanalysis and history. From this inaugural text, the paper examines some psychoanalysts and historians who investigated the link between psychoanalysis and history, to find convergences and divergences on the practice of the psychoanalytic historian. Lastly, it proposes three axis for a psychoanalytic historiography, articulated around the concepts of afterwardsness, das Ding and historical truth. This historiographic reflection seeks to show different ways of thinking the history of the psychoanalytic movement.
Keywords:
psychoanalysis; history; afterwardsness; das Ding; historical truth