We are in 1926, Freud has almost completed the theoretical foundation of psychoanalysis. He has developed the second topographical model, the third drive theory (of life and death), and has revealed the meaning of the compulsion to repeat.

At the same time, psychoanalysis as a scientific theory and as a therapeutic methodology has gained wide acceptance from the scientific community.

"Inhibition, Symptom, and Anxiety" is a clinical and at the same time metapsychological text, where specific clinical and metapsychological meanings are explored in different chapters.

In light of the re-examination of basic clinical concepts such as symptom and anxiety, Freud essentially attempts a comprehensive recap of psychoanalytic theory; something he tried again with the unfinished "Summary" in 1938.