A listener note, this episode contains reference to suicide, sexual abuse, and details of traumatic events that some people might find distressing.

Listener discretion is advised, and this is probably not for some younger listeners.

Hello and welcome to the second episode in our series about Sigmund Freud. Welcome to the second episode in our series about Sigmund Freud.

We left Freud having a breakthrough with the new science of psychoanalysis.

Working with patients like Anna O, he's made the groundbreaking discovery that ailments of the

body can be treated with ideas. He's now doing a steady business

in Vienna, analysing patients, many from the city's aristocratic class. Not bad for the son of a poor

Jewish wool merchant. But his positioning of sex as a central cause of neuroses has already caused a break

with collaborator Joseph Boyer.

So now he's working alone, trying to advance psychoanalysis.

And he's about to delve into the world of dream analysis,

trying to understand the hidden world of the subconscious.

Will he succeed where others throughout history have failed?

From Wondery and Goalhanger, I'm Peter Frank Gapern.

I'm Eiffa Hirsch.

And this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived,

and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.

This is Sigmund Freud, episode two, a meeting of minds. So it's early winter 1899. The 19th century is drawing to a close, but it's not the end of an era.

In fact, in Europe, the Bel-epoc is at its height. It's a time of peace, economic prosperity,

and flourishing cultural innovations.

And in Vienna, Freud is about to publish a book that will put his name on the map, eventually.

Before his star can rise, his ideas need to find an audience.

...