Opening the question

It is now over 100 years since September 1909, when Sigmund Freud gave a week of lectures at Clark University in Massachusetts, introducing his way of understanding the human condition to an American culture both tenuously eager and, in so many respects, profoundly ill-prepared (Hale, 1971, 1995). He was approaching the culmination of what was over a decade of intense revelations, unseemly politicking, and prolific writing. These five introductory lectures were an attempt to define and present the kernel of his discipline.