Sigmund Freud's Framework

Freud rose at seven, ate breakfast and had his beard trimmed by the barber who called every day, then saw patients from eight until noon. Dinner, his main meal, was served promptly at one and eaten in concentrated silence. Afterwards he walked Vienna's Ringstrasse at terrific speed. Consultations and more patients ran from three until nine at night. After supper he played cards with his sister-in-law or walked with his wife or daughter, then retired to his study to read, write and edit the psychoanalytic journals until one in the morning or later. Two things held the regime up: as many as twenty cigars a day, and three-month summer holidays of hiking, mushrooming and fishing. The chart counts the evening consultations as creative work, so the week reads as a four-hour clinic in the morning, an hour's fast walk, six hours of afternoon and evening practice, and two and a half hours of writing after supper. Six hours of sleep; the summer is the recovery.