This documentary was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the autumn of 2000 to mark the centenary of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. As Freud scholars often remind us, this work was actually published first in 1899, but Freud had the publisher print the date as 1900, perhaps so as to not make the book feel 100 years old already with the turn of the century, or perhaps because he hoped psychoanalysis would become the science of that century.

Indeed, the status of psychoanalysis 100 years (or so) on from the publication of what is acknowledged as Freud’s most major work, the work that heralded the birth of psychoanalysis proper (even if the term had been used by Freud several years before), is the subject of this documentary.

It is the final part of a three-part series, but unfortunately because I was 15 at the time of its broadcast and had to go to school whilst it was aired I missed recording the first two parts. However I am very pleased to have found the cassette tape amongst some old junk so wanted to share it in spite of the slightly poor sound quality.

A fine list of heavyweights in the psy- field contribute their thoughts on Freud’s contested legacy. To name a few: historian of science Ian Hacking; neuro-psychoanalyst Mark Solms; psychotherapist Adam Phillips; philosopher and writer of one of the best books on Lacan, ‘Lacan: The Absolute Master’, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen; Freud writer Lisa Appignanesi; and Cambridge professor, historian and translator of Lacan’s Seminar I, John Forrester.

The first part is on YouTube above, the second and third parts are here and here respectively.

By Owen Hewitson, LacanOnline.com