[Freud, the biography, his autobiography and his biographers]

Freud has a dual attitude to the biographical genre. When he places himself in the position of psychoanalyst-biographer of others, he is enthusiastic, speaking of ground to be conquered for psychoanalysis, and his works, as well as his correspondence, show that he continued to devote himself to investigations which resulted in interpretations of a number of personalities, the most detailed of which dealt with Leonardo de Vinci, Goethe, Dostoyevsky, President Wilson, and Moses. On the other hand, even though during the first years of the discovery of psychoanalysis he allowed himself, in a more or less veiled manner, confidences of an autobiographical nature, Freud remained very secretive about himself. He limited himself to making public only the routine information found on his university resume or the details of his life directly related to the discovery and the development of psychoanalysis. Hidden behind die Sache, the Cause, the man always vigorously defended himself against those who, braving the periodical destruction to which he subjected his archives, claimed to apply to him this "investigative drive" whose heuristic richness he otherwise celebrated. It is by means of fantasies of identification to the work, present in every biographical attempt, that we attempt to address here the contradictions of this dual attitude.