The first edition of this classic work from 1905 shows a radically different psychoanalysisThe traditional story about the historical origins of Freudian psychoanalysis implies that the Oedipus complex was part of Freudian theory from the very beginning. However, in this first edition ofThree Essays on Sexuality, first published in 1905 and never before translated into English, we find no reference whatsoever to the Oedipus complex. Is there a Freudian psychoanalysis that is not Oedipal?This first version of Freud'sThree Essaysarticulates just such a non-Oedipal psychoanalysis. As such, it still has a definite 'emancipatory' potential; Freudian psychoanalysis is not Oedipal in its very nature. It is only from 1909 onwards that psychoanalysis tends to become a sophisticated defence of what Freud first called the 'popular opinion' about sexuality. It was precisely this 'popular opinion' that psychoanalysis originally was meant to deconstruct.