Before of the Beyond the Pleasure Principle: a return to the manuscripts

Abstract

In tribute to the centenary of the first edition of Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920-2020), we propose in this article a documental history of the Freudian text. Two elements willbe prioritized here, the wider editorial context in which the work was published and the manuscripts that gave rise to the final version of the text. At the end of this study, two hypotheses will be sustained, that Beyond the Pleasure Principle was conceived by Freud as a clinical work with scientific pretensions and that it was written in a permanent dialogue with other psychoanalysts and researchers.