Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality is one of the grounding texts of 20th century European thinking. In it Freud develops a highly original theory of sexuality for which hysteria (and pathology in general) serves a model to understand human existence. Freud published this text seven times during his lifetime. The later editions tend to hide the revolutionary potential of his thinking. In this commentary we want to reconstruct this potential and in doing so it wants to make clear in what respect Freud’s thinking remains a permanent challenge to contemporary psychoanalytic and psychiatric thinking.

Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality is one of the grounding texts of 20th century European thinking. In it Freud develops a highly original theory of sexuality for which hysteria (and pathology in general) serves a model to understand human existence. Freud published this text seven times during his lifetime. The later editions tend to hide the revolutionary potential of his thinking. In this commentary we want to reconstruct this potential and in doing so it wants to make clear in what respect Freud’s thinking remains a permanent challenge to contemporary psychoanalytic and psychiatric thinking.