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Sigmund [[Freud]]'s only visit to the [[United States ]] was in 1909, when he was invited by G. Stanley Hall, first president of Clark [[University ]] in Worcester, Massachusetts, to deliver a series of lectures to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the university.

Hall invited twenty-seven [[other ]] distinguished participants, all of whom received honorary degrees, including the Nobel Laureates in [[physics ]] Albert Michelson and Ernest Rutherford. But clearly Freud was the most important participant, in Hall's view; part of the celebration was delayed from July to September, the date Freud requested, so as not to interfere with his private [[practice]]. Hall also invited Carl Gustav [[Jung ]] to participate, and Freud asked Sándor Ferenczi to accompany him. The [[three ]] [[psychoanalysts ]] thus sojourned from Bremen to New York on the George Washington. They spent a week in New York, welcomed by [[Abraham ]] Brill, [[seeing ]] their first movie, visiting Central Park, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Coney Island, the American Museum of [[Natural ]] [[History]], and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Freud especially enjoyed the antiquities). At the [[Psychiatric ]] [[Clinic ]] at Columbia University, near Riverside [[Drive ]] overlooking the Hudson River, Freud experienced an embarrassing incident of urinary incontinence. Worried that he might [[experience ]] [[another ]] while on [[stage ]] at Clark, Jung offered to [[help ]] by analyzing the incident. Freud produced a [[dream]], but the [[associations ]] to it apparently became too intimate; when Jung pressed, Freud demurred, saying he could not risk his [[authority ]] by such disclosures. According to Jung's account, this began the break between the two of [[them]].

Freud was ecstatic by the invitation and by the prospect of lecturing to a distinguished American audience. After years of [[working ]] in "splendid [[isolation]]" he found himself "received by the foremost men as an equal. As I stepped on to the platform at Worcester to deliver my Five Lectures on [[Psycho]]-[[Analysis ]] it seemed like the realization of some incredible day-dream: psycho-analysis was no longer a product of a [[delusion]], it had become a valuable part of [[reality]]. It has not lost ground in America since our visit . . ." (Freud, 1925d, p.52). In the audience were William [[James ]] (he and Freud walked together and James suffered what was probably an angina attack from the heart disease that was to kill him shortly thereafter), Emma Goldman, and many other notables.

To be spontaneous, Freud delivered the five lectures without [[notes ]] or extensive preparation; he simply talked with Ferenczi shortly before each lecture [[about ]] the day's topic. Later, Freud changed the [[text ]] somewhat before publication by Clark's house [[organ]]. Intending a general introduction, Freud discussed [[hysteria]], [[repression ]] and the talking [[cure]], functions and [[interpretation ]] of [[dreams]], [[childhood ]] [[sexuality]], and [[symptoms]]. One of the great [[intellectual ]] events of the century, the trip greatly stimulated the growth of [[psychoanalysis ]] in the United States: the American [[Psychoanalytic ]] [[Association ]] was founded in Baltimore just two years later, years earlier than may have been the [[case ]] otherwise.

See also: Brill, Abraham Arden; [[Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis]]; [[Jones]], Ernest; Putnam, James Jackson; United States.[[Bibliography]]