Interview with Dr. Mark Solms on Freud & Surrealism

Dr. Mark Solms talks about his work as the translator of the “Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”, the time Dali met Freud, and more.

Jul 10, 2024By Antonis Chaliakopoulos, MSc Museum Studies, BA History & Archaeology

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TheCollector recently had the pleasure of interviewing renowned psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist Dr. Mark Solms. Our conversation centered around his long-awaited revised translation of Sigmund Freud’s complete psychological works (The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud), the relationship between Freudian psychoanalysis and the movement of Surrealism, and Freud’s key contributions to the modern world. You can watch the video here: 

 

 

The Importance of Freud & Surrealism

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Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dalí, 1937. Source: Tate, London

 

We began our discussion by exploring Sigmund Freud’s fundamental contributions to psychology and the challenges that Dr. Solms faced while revising the standard translation of Freud’s complete works. Then, the discussion moved to the Surrealists’ unique interpretation of psychoanalysis. Dr. Solms even shared insights into Dalí’s meeting with Freud and Freud’s own perspective on art, including his influential work “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1899) and the concept of the “uncanny.”



About Mark Solms

Mark Solms, photo

 

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Mark Solms is an acclaimed psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist known for the integration of contemporary neuroscience with psychoanalytic methods and theories and for his discovery of the forebrain mechanisms of dreaming. He is Director of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital, Science Director of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and Co-Chair of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. He has won many prestigious awards, including the Sigourney Award.

 

He has published more than 250 articles and book chapters and authored six books, including The Neuropsychology of Dreams (1997), The Brain and the Inner World (2002, with Oliver Turnbull), and The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness (2021). Also, he was the founding editor of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. He is the authorized editor and translator of the Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols) and the Complete Neuroscientific Works of Sigmund Freud (4 vols). 

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By Antonis ChaliakopoulosMSc Museum Studies, BA History & ArchaeologyAntonis is an archaeologist with a passion for museums and heritage and a keen interest in aesthetics and the reception of classical art. He holds an MSc in Museum Studies from the University of Glasgow and a BA in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens (NKUA) where he is currently working on his PhD.