Commented translation of Freud’s conference on male hysteria: a contribution to psychoanalysis’s historiography

Abstract

This article is based on a translation of the notes on the proceedings of Freud’s conference on masculine hysteria, presented by him before the Vienna Society of Physicians. The conference gained prominence within psychoanalytical discourses mostly due to the idea that Freud would have been object to scorning and rejection by the medical and scientific community present on the occasion –perception this article aims to put into question and to rectify. A technical, contextual and critical overview on the events and elements in question is also provided in the article, with the purpose of supporting and furthering the insights we aimed to provide with the publication of this translation; we also meant to shed new light into the events and to rectify some misunderstandings unfortunately recurrent in the historiography of psychoanalysis as related to this specific episode and its significance. Thus, as an exemplary case, we understand this event as the axis for a broader critique on some assumptions and positions regarding psychoanalytical historiography.