Content Blog: Freud's Gothic Contribution

Freud holds a special place in understanding the Gothic ideals. As the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud's entire purpose was to delve deeper into the human psyche and solve issues on the mental and emotional level, particularly those in the subconscious mind. Take into consideration that the vast majority of those seeing Freud were women with emotional trauma due to the oppression by the structure of the empire, psychoanalysis was clearly a way to help treat those whose only way of emotionally decompressing was in the form of reading romance novels. Freud may not have created the Gothic, but his medical and mental analysis opened up an entirely new way to look at the classical Gothic plague of emotion. No longer were women crazy for feeling emotion; they just needed to be talked to and allowed to vent. The Gothic mindset through Freud became less of a stigma and more of a natural occurrence.