Associated object

Ilios, Stadt und Land der Trojaner: Forschungen und Entdeckungen in der Troas und besonders auf der Baustelle von Troja

Heinrich Schliemann, 1881

LFRD 345

In May 1899, as he was completing The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud wrote to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, ‘I gave myself a present, Schliemann’s Ilios, and greatly enjoyed the account of his childhood. The man was happy when he found Priam’s treasure, because happiness comes only with the fulfilment of a childhood wish’. Freud began to think of the mind as an archaeological site, and the psychoanalyst as an archaeologist, who helps the patient uncover the causes of their symptoms.