Sigmund Freud

As an Austrian neurologist, writer, and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) proposed that unconscious conflict could be approached through speech and interpretation. His writing moves from clinical questions to culture, treating dreams, slips of language, desire, and repression as meaningful rather than accidental. The Interpretation of Dreams lays out his most extensive account of dream formation and analytic reading. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis offers a more guided sequence of lectures on the field’s central ideas. Totem and Taboo extends psychoanalytic speculation toward social prohibition, belief, and collective life. The Interpretation of Dreams suits readers ready for a demanding primary text; the lectures provide a more structured route. Reading the works together shows how Freud moved from dream interpretation and clinical language to broader claims about culture, belief, and collective life.