The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry is a classic work of medical history and historiography, written by the Swiss medical historian Henri F. Ellenberger. First published in 1970 and constantly in print since then, it has become the standard historical reference for the early and middle development of dynamic psychiatry, covering the period from antiquity up to about 1950.
The main focus of this 932-page work is on the contributions and thought of Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, but the five large chapters on earlier centuries contain a wealth of information on the many precursors of modern psychiatry, including exorcism, Mesmerism, and hypnotherapy. The work describes the earliest inklings in medicine of the existence of an unconscious mind. Ellenberger relates the gradual exploration of this uncharted world of unconscious thought and feeling. The work is encyclopedic, with thousands of references into the literature, but the author is not without a particular point of view, nor is the work free of polemics.[1]
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Ellenberger, Henri F. (1970) The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books. Hardcover ISBN 0-465-01672-3, softcover ISBN 0-465-01672-3.