Freud Museum

On January 11, our class went to the Freud Museum. The museum is held inside Sigmund Freud’s final home in London. Freud’s living and working spaces were preserved to match their original orientation. I was most interested in Freud’s study; seeing the array of artifacts he collected as well at the renowned couch that started the field of psychoanalysis was incredible. At the museum we were granted the opportunity to learn about Freud’s life and connections to Bloomsbury. Freud came from a Jewish family and in his youth he had to flee to Vienna due to persecution.  He was a traditional man; his intellectual thoughts were an outlet for creativity. Freud initially wanted to study neuroscience but struggled to make enough money, so he opened a clinical practice and found interest in psychoanalysis after the death of his father. It was through his advancement in psychoanalysis that Freud began a relationship with the Bloomsbury Group; in the 1920s the Hogarth Press was the official psychoanalytic publishing house. 

Freud viewed psychoanalysis as a clinical practice as well as a theory that can be applied to an array of fields. People actively defend themselves against uncomfortable thoughts; Freudian psychology wants to uncover what has been repressed. Freud was particularly interested in applying his psychoanalytic theory to the Bloomsbury Group due to their contemporary approach to life, particularly regarding their sexuality. When thinking about the Bloomsbury Group in the context of Freud, we see that Virginia Woolf struggled with psychoanalysis. This was theorized in an analysis of Woolf’s letters to Leonard in which she reveals aspects of what might be considered a narcissistic disturbance and an incapacity for love.1 Virginia works through many of her feelings in her writings. This is the case in Mrs. Dalloway, where we see themes of repression. The main character, Clarissa Dalloway, is consistently repressing emotion to fit English societal standards. Clarissa recounts her love for Sally Seton when she states, “Take Sally Seton; her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had not that, after all, been love?”2 Clarissa clearly adores Sally, but must hold back due to sexual norms at the time. Talking about these kinds of sexual issues was very modern of Woolf and allowed her some of her own repressed emotions.