[Freud's references to Delboeuf]

Freud was an attentive reader of the works of Joseph Delboeuf (1831-1896) on hypnotism and dreams. The author, little known today, was of great scientific renown during Freud's prepsychoanalytical period. In 1885, as professor at the University of Liege, he published an important work on sleep and dreams. Moreover, starting in the same year, he continued to study in depth the dynamics specific to hypnosis, finally detaching it from its traditional association to induced sleep and viewing it as a specific form of affective relationship between hypnotizer and hypnotized. In these two fields, Freud accepted him as the authority, citing him in most of his psychological texts from 1889-1900, but most particularly, at very significant points, in the Traumdeutung.