Freud's adolescence and the prolegomena to psychoanalysis

The adolescence of creative individuals appears retrospectively preparatory. It is a period of apprenticeship permitting ego integrations of new identifications and the amalgamation of attachments from the past with goals for the future. A period of moratorium during which there is seeming inactivity permits the consolidation of new skills and interests. In Sigmund Freud's case, the period of early adolescence (following the onset of puberty) may have provided an opportunity for psychological discoveries through experiments with free association. These insights were repressed in later adolescence and did not reach fruition until subsequent maturity of the ego had taken place. It is suggested that early adolescence permits a prepatterning for later creative activity and the nascent contents are an anlage for the subsequent creativity.Received his M.D. from University of Toronto. Major interests are creativity and the relation between psychoanalysis and the humanities.