Freud's excellent adventure Down Under: the only publication in Australia by the founder of psychoanalysis

The aim of this paper is to describe the circumstances surrounding the only paper published in Australia by Sigmund Freud--his only publication in the Southern Hemisphere--in 1911.

The invitations in 1911 from a Sydney psychoanalysis study group to Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Havelock Ellis to present papers at the Australasian Medical Congress, came at a time when the world was barely aware of Freud's new psychology, and well in advance of many other countries. Sparring by Freud and Jung over a joint presentation was evident in the respective papers they sent, and they soon parted. A review of other papers presented at the congress indicates that Australian psychiatry, notwithstanding its slow progress, was well informed on recent developments, which was to manifest with biological treatments, as well as with the establishment of psychoanalysis. Despite its distance from Vienna, Australia seemed to have a special place in Freud's mind that was to surface in various ways over the years, not least in Totem and Taboo.