The Tight-Rope Walkers

The idea according to which Freud began with psychoanalysis by putting an end to his practice of hypnosis is generally very well accepted today. In spite of some criticism which claims that this is not so obvious, the analytic community (let's suppose for the moment that such a thing exists) holds to this assertion through thick and thin. But it is equally evident that something had been kept alive from hypnosis in the new technique of free association, and a simple look at two of Freud’s texts will be enough to support this: the first one written in the glorious time of hypnosis, the second, ten years later, in Die Traumdeutung.…