Before Freud, the field of psychiatry was relatively virgin. French scientist Jean Charcourt and his student Pierre Jannet established an independent position in this field through their research on hypnosis and hysteria. Freud studied with him from 1885 to 1886-the relationship with Janet is similar to the relationship between Saint Simon and Comte. It was Jannet who studied the mental process of hysteria in depth. Based on the genetic theory that prevailed in French psychology at the end of the 19th century, he believed that this disease was a form of nervous system degeneration, which manifested itself as a natural "weakness."
Before writing this book, Freud not only had sufficient mental preparation, but also collected a lot of information. In 1896 and 1897, he had already given lectures on dreams at the Jewish Academic Hall in Vienna. The death of his father in October 1896 prompted him to start a self-analysis based on previous theoretical research and medical practice. From another perspective, his father's death was the main reason for his self-analysis.