Lie on Sigmund Freud's couch ... online.

• Position: Library of Congress

The Sigmund Freud Collection at the Library of Congress has been digitized and now is online with more than 20,000 items, containing the personal papers of Freud (1856-1939), the neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, whose ideas of the unconscious and theories on sex, repression, transference, and religion profoundly influenced 20th-century Western thought. His theories still generate controversy.

Freud, who escaped to England after the Nazi takeover of Austria prior to World War II, remains a primary figure in modern cultural and intellectual history. The collection documents the formulation of his thinking, including the birth and maturation of psychoanalytic theory, the refinement of its clinical technique, and the proliferation of its adherents and critics.

The collection includes his early medical and clinical training; relationship with family, friends, colleagues, students, and patients; association with early psychoanalytic societies; perspectives on analytical training; and numerous writings. It contains family papers, correspondence, legal documents and certificates, notebooks, and other materials of a personal nature encompassing his life and career. People of great prominence in 20th-century...