Library & Cultural Services: Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies: Primary Sources. Special Collections

Primary Sources

Researchers in psychoanalysis and related fields can make use of a wide range of primary sources, both printed or online, in their research. Some examples of this type of resource include:

original books & documents (e.g. the works of Freud, Jung,etc.)
archives (see next section)
audio-visual: advertising, art works, film, music, photographs (see the Sociology subject guide for AV resources)
literary works
news reports (see the Sociology subject guide for News resources)
official: government publications, legal documents (see the Politics subject guide for UK & other countries, and the Law subject guide
personal: autobiographies, diaries
qualitative data: interviews & recordings, questionnaires (many sources, including the UK Data Archive)
social media

Special Collections & Archives

The Library has a number of interesting special collections in Psychoanalysis and related fields, some of which are of considerable importance. A handful are book collections (e.g. Holt), others are archival (e.g. Balint), and the remainder are a mixture of materials (e.g. Freud).

For more information please see the Library's Special Collections web page and accompanying Blog post

Looking beyond Essex, the Library's Archives web page may help point to further resources, notably the portal to collections nationally - Archives Hub

The Institute of Psychoanalysis (British Psychoanalytical Society) has extensive archives including the papers of Ernest Jones, John Rickman, James & Alix Strachey, Sylvia Payne and Michael Balint. It also maintains some useful links to other UK archival collections, including the Wellcome Institute Library, which is an important repository, including the Melanie Klein papers and collections of other analysts

In the US, the Library of Congress has digitised the Sigmund Freud Collection of over 20 000 items including the personal papers of Freud

Digitised Primary Sources

Whilst printed collections & archives remain important, recent years have seen a massive increase in the number of digitised primary sources. Some of these are freely available from sources like national archives, national libraries & research universities, and others can be purchased through commercial vendors who specialise in this area. It might be worth exploring some of the subject guides, in particular History and Sociology, which list many interesting resources.

A few examples include:

British Online Archives
Including:
Apartheid Through the Eyes of South African Political Parties, 1948-1994;
BBC Handbooks, Annual Reports and Accounts, 1927-2002;
BBC Listener Research Department Reports, 1937-c.1950;
British Government Information and Propaganda, 1939-2009;
Colonial Africa in Official Statistics, 1821-1953;
Colonial Law in Africa, 1808-1919;
Colonial Law in Africa, 1920-1945;
Colonial Law in Africa, 1946-1966;
Communism and Popular Culture in the 20th Century;
Communism, Culture and Society in the 20th Century;
Communisms and the Cold War, 1944-1986;
Independent Labour Party Records, 1893-1960;
Liverpool Shipping Records: Imports and Exports (Parts 1, 2 and 3);
Prosecuting the Holocaust: British Investigations into Nazi Crimes, 1944-1949;
Records from Bethlem Royal Hospital, 1559-1932;
Slave Trade Records from Liverpool, 1754-1792;
Slavery Through Time: from Enslavers to Abolitionists, 1675-1865;
South Africa Under Apartheid: Reports and Research by a Journalist, 1949-1995;
The East India Company: Corrupt Governance and Cruelty in India, 1806-1814;
The East India Company: Laying the Foundations for British Colonial Domination of India, 1752-1774;
Zimbabwe Under Colonial Rule, in Government Reports, 1897-1980
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First World War Portal
From personal collections and rare printed material, to military files, ephemera and artwork, The First World War highlights the experiences of soldiers, civilians and governments on both sides of the conflict and in multiple theatres of war. Covering an array of international perspectives, the resource showcases intimate personal narratives, wartime propaganda and recruitment material, the truly global reach of the conflict, and the role of women in war through various documentary and visual forms.
Gender : identity and social change
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the mens movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
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Mass observation online
This resource offers revolutionary access to one of the most important archives for the study of social history in the modern era (1937-1956). Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
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JSTOR Open Community Collections
Rapidly growing platform for open access primary source material from institutions in the US and beyond, includes a strong visual component

Mass Observation Project
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation in the 1980s and 1990s and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. The directives and responses from the 2000s will follow in 2022.
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Government Publications

For details of UK government publications please see the Politics subject guide

For details of official publications from the UN and other international agencies see the Law subject guide and the Politics subject guide