Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (German: Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten) is a 1905 book on the psychoanalysis of jokes and humour by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was published in German in 1905. The book's title in English is in accordance with the 1960 translation by James Strachey. In some other English translations the work is titled The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious or Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. In the work, Freud describes the psychological processes and techniques of jokes, which he compares to the processes and techniques of dreamwork and the unconscious. He assesses prior studies on jokes and establishes a characterization of jokes. Freud links these characteristics to psychodynamics and his understanding of the unconscious mind while reconciling new theoretic insights with his 1899 book The Interpretation of Dreams.