This 40 second excerpt of Freud speaking in English is from a 7-inch, 33 1/3 RPM record first offered for sale as "A Rare Christmas Gift for Colleagues and Collectors" by The Psychoanalytic Review in 1964. The recording was made in London in December 1938, less than a year before his death. His slow speech is due to a prosthetic device he wore in his mouth as a result of multiple surgeries for cancer of the jaw. A transcript of the excerpt is presented below. You may need to listen to it several times to catch all the words.
I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend, and by my own efforts, I discovered some important new facts about the unconscious in psychic life, the role of the instinctual urges, and so on.
The script for this recording, in Freud's own hand, is in
the Library of Congress Freud Exhibition. It reads:
Dec. 7, 1938
I started my professional activity
as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic
patients.
Under the influence of an older friend and by my own efforts
I discovered some new and important
facts about the unconscious in psychic life, the role of
instinctual urges and so on. Out of these
findings grew a new science, Psycho-Analysis, a part of
psychology and a new method of treatment of the
neuroses.
A short sentence in German.
Sgm. Freud
I had to pay heavily for this bit of
good luck. People did not believe in my facts and thought
my theories
unsavoury. Resistance was strong and unrelenting. In the
end I suceeded in
acquiring pupils and building up an International
Psycho-Analytic Association. But this struggle
is not yet over.
Last revision: June 11, 1997
Graphic from Suler, J. (June, 1995). World Wide Web.
[http://www1.rider.edu/~suler/TCP.html]
