The Acropolis and the Unconscious: Freud’s Unexpected Revelation in Athens

Freud connected the Acropolis. GR Illustration. Public Domain

Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist and the laminitis of psychoanalysis, had lone 1 acquisition astatine the Acropolis successful Athens, but it seems to person been an aggravated one.

He was an older antheral successful 1904 and was accompanied by his younger brother, Alexander. As was fashionable for precocious nine of the time, Athens was an obligatory halt successful the Grand Tour, and this was nary objection for the Viennese brothers. However, they had their question plans to Corfu disrupted, and they stopped successful Athens a portion longer than planned.

In his letters, Freud mentions that the archetypal feeling was 1 of deja vu. Indeed, helium had seen a replica astatine the Volksgarten successful Vienna, wherever an nonstop transcript had been commissioned by Napoleon.

He wrote to his woman that it “surpasses everything that we’ve ever seen and that 1 tin imagine” and that the presumption from the citadel was “herrlich” (“splendid”).

That was not all. On the Acropolis, Freud experienced thing similar a “disturbance of memory” (Erinnerungsstörung). It was thing helium would aboriginal place and analyze. He  spent a agelong clip contemplating this acquisition and wrote astir it years aboriginal successful a missive to Romain Rolland, a French writer and Freud’s friend.

“A Disturbance of Memory connected the Acropolis” is present considered a seminal work. He considered self-analysis to beryllium conscionable arsenic important, and aboriginal expanded connected this term, analyzing what helium considered to beryllium the operation of derealization.

Sigmund Freud: “I americium present lasting connected the Acropolis, lone I don’t judge it.”

Sigmund Freud. Credit: Psychology Pictures / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

“By the grounds of my senses, I americium present lasting connected the Acropolis, lone I don’t judge it.”

Greek history and mythology had profoundly inspired the Viennese scientist since childhood, arsenic is evident successful his psychoanalytic work. He was puzzled astir the detachment helium experienced determination and considered it to beryllium a defence mechanism. The question, however, is from what. Was derealization a defence from dreams coming true?

The reply helium came to was, strangely enough, Oedipal. He wrote:

“To this wide motive [i.e. of guilt, that the lad should surpass the father] is added the peculiar origin that successful the taxable itself of Athens and the Acropolis determination is contained an denotation of the sons’ superiority [Uberlegenheit]. Our begetter had been a businessman [Kaufmann], helium possessed nary Gymnasium education, Athens could not mean overmuch to him. What disturbed america successful our enjoyment of the travel to Athens was truthful a feeling of [filial] piety.”

It was not lone a collision of emotions that came implicit the visitor, but overmuch much than that. Freud indispensable person felt transformed by the primeval symbolism of the Acropolis successful utmost opposition with the author’s German identity, his classical education, and modernism. The trope of the destroyed temple successful Judaism indispensable person so struck immoderate affectional chord successful the writer of the letters.

If Freud had been a Romantic creator alternatively than a modern-day poet, helium mightiness person seen it successful a precise akin mode to Stendhal upon his sojourn to Italy, wherever helium experienced akin feelings and attributed this uniquely to the quality helium was experiencing. This would aboriginal beryllium termed Stendhal’s syndrome.

The occupation of utmost quality and harmony causing astatine slightest immoderate distress successful humans mightiness oregon mightiness not beryllium thing new. Some person talked astir this, portion others person lone described utmost bid and happiness.

The lone certainty is that quality helps humans conceive of their finiteness successful the look of specified past wonders. Protecting monuments for aboriginal generations truthful that they, too, whitethorn wonderment astatine the depths of quality acquisition is an indispensable work of humanity.

Freud and past Greece

Freud saw a beardown parallel betwixt the enactment of an archaeologist and that of a psychoanalyst. Just arsenic an archaeologist unearths hidden layers of an past city, a psychoanalyst uncovers repressed memories and unconscious thoughts from a patient’s past.

This metaphor, which helium utilized successful his writings, draws from the archaeological discoveries happening successful Greece and Italy during his lifetime, which captured the public’s imagination.

Freud had a beardown classical acquisition and was a lifelong collector of antiquities, including Greek and Roman artifacts.

His usage of Greek concepts and figures wasn’t accidental; it was portion of a larger intelligence contented that saw ancient Greece arsenic a cardinal to knowing quality quality and Western civilization. He utilized these references to lend authorization and a consciousness of timelessness to his caller tract of psychoanalysis.

Freud utilized the myth of Oedipus, the king who unknowingly kills his begetter and marries his mother, arsenic the instauration for his mentation of the Oedipus complex. He believed this to beryllium a cosmopolitan signifier of psychosexual improvement successful which a young lad harbors unconscious desires for his parent and feelings of rivalry toward his father.

This concept, cardinal to his psychoanalytic theory, is straight named aft a Greek mythological figure. Similarly, the Electra complex, a parallel mentation for girls, is named aft different Greek myth.