Common (under)ground in psychoanalysis: the question of a Weltanschauung revisited

The aim of this paper is to suggest that, beneath the 'common ground' shared by different types of psychoanalyses, there is a common underground that is seldom discussed in psychoanalytic literature: the fact that any psychoanalysis has the potential of becoming a Weltanschauung or world-view. The roots of this fact in Freud's writings are discussed and some of the consequences of this transformation of psychoanalysis into Weltanschauung for psychoanalysis as science and movement are presented.