New Exhibition Unravels Sigmund Freuds Complex Relationship With the Women in His Life and WorkWomen & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists spotlights the women who influenced the Austrian neurologistand the field of psychoanalysis more broadly Sigmund Freud in the office of his Vienna home in 1930 Bettmann / ContributorWomen intriguedSigmund Freud, but they also baffled him. As the founder of psychoanalysis once said, The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is What does a woman want?Freud learned a lot from the women around him, including his patients, his peers and his daughters. Now, 85 years after the Austrian neurologists death, a new exhibition at Londons Freud Museum explores his complicated relationship with women.Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists fills the entire museum, which was Freuds last home and workplace. It incorporates historic artifactssuch as manuscripts, letters, photos, objects, diaries and film footageas well as contemporary works by women artists. The exhibition also explores the history of theHogarth Press, which began publishing Freuds work 100 years ago.The neurologist famously developed manycontroversialand often incorrect or misogynistictheories about women during his lifetime. The exhibition aims to present this part of Freuds work in a new light, arguing that it may have inadvertently advanced the feminist revolutions that came later.Did the talking cure give women the power to speak in their own voice? writes the museum on the exhibition website. Did Freud raise womens private, secret thoughts and emotions into a public (and scientific) discourse so that they could consider their own sexuality openly, even if in argument with him? Where does sexual difference elide into gendered expectations or prohibitions? These are some of the questions the exhibition raises through its women.The show is the first to celebrate the women in Freuds world, according to the Art Newspapers Maev Kennedy. Many of his patients went on to become successful psychoanalysts themselves. The exhibition explores womens professional contributions not just to the fields of child psychology and child development, but to the very tenets of psychoanalysis, Michael Marder, the author of a forthcoming book on Freud, tells the Observers Vanessa Thorpe.An entire room of the museum is dedicated to Anna Freud, Freuds youngest daughter, who went on to become a pioneering psychoanalyst in her own right. The exhibition also celebratesMelanie Klein,Juliet Mitchell,Julia Kristeva,Helene Deutsch and Marie Bonaparte.Bonaparte was Napoleons great-grandniece, and she helped Freud, who was Jewish, escape the Nazis in 1938. Despite the outsized role the last Bonaparte played in the history of psychoanalysis, too few are aware of her significant contributions, according to themuseum.The artworks featured in the exhibition include spreads from Alison Bechdels graphic memoirAre You My Mother? andPaula Regos cloth dollies. Also on view is Sarah Lucas SEX BOMB, a concrete and bronze sculpture of a stiletto-clad figure slumped over in a chair.The exhibitions effort to recast the story of Freuds relationship to women in a positive lightindeed the relation of psychoanalysis to femininityis laudable, writesSimon Wortham, a scholar of literature and philosophy at Kingston University in London, in theConversation. However, it is left to art to retell this tale through more disturbing interventions.Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists is on view at the Freud Museum in London through May 5, 2025.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Sarah Kuta| READ MORESarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.Filed Under: Art, Arts, European History, Exhibitions, Exhibits, London, Museums, Psychology, Women's History