Psychoanalysis and Autobiography. A Comparative Study of Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome

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This study examined a complementary or oppositional relationship between psy-choanalysis and autobiography/biography as literary genre by comparing the works of Sigmund Freud(1856-1939) and Lou Andreas-Salome(1861-1937), a writer and his coworker, in the Psychoanalytic Movement. In addition, taking account of Freudian theories of memory, the study investigated whether psychoanalysis enabled both writers to transform a "narrative of life." Freud was skeptical about the nature of an autobiography, which is traditionally associated with a linearly evolving life story of an outstanding individual. He was less interested in writing his own autobiography, sug-gesting that the psychological studies of infantile memories included in autobiograph-ical works are much more important. In contrast, Andreas-Salome used various genres in autobiographical writing, such as psychoanalytic theoretical essays, novels, and autobiographies. She gave her own childhood memories a multilayered representation and transfigured them into a universal memory that should be shared by all.