The Century of the Self

The series runs across four hour-long parts, moving from Freud's account of the unconscious to the American century that followed. It follows Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, as he carries those ideas into advertising, wartime propaganda, and postwar marketing, then traces how later figures, from Anna Freud to the human potential movement, shaped the way governments and corporations addressed the inner life of the citizen. Curtis builds it from archive footage, corporate films, and interviews.

Commentators treated it as an unusually ambitious attempt to put a history of psychoanalytic ideas on television, built from voiceover, montage, and essayistic argument rather than reportage. Reviewers noted its density and its readiness to draw large connections, and some questioned whether every link held; the method became as discussed as the thesis.

For a psychodynamic clinician the interest lies in watching analytic concepts leave the consulting room and enter public life. The series sets out how a theory of unconscious drives was read as a problem to be managed, how Bernays turned it into the engineering of desire, and how a Freudian picture of the crowd informed consumption and political persuasion.