Freud’s Last Session – A Play

FREUD’S LAST SESSION, by Mark St. Germain, is based on the book “The Question of God” by Armond Nicholi, which contrasts the worldviews of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud. The play centers on an imagined meeting between legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud and the young, rising Oxford professor, C.S. Lewis. On the day England enters World War Two, Freud and Lewis clash about love, sex, the existence of God, and the meaning of life, just weeks before Freud took his own life.

Historians have not found clear evidence that Freud ever met with Lewis. However, that doesn’t mean it did not happen. Freud spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria, but left in June 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. He lived in London until his death on September 23, 1939, three weeks after World War II started. It is known that he met with an Oxford professor during the weeks leading up to his death, although it’s unknown who he met with. He could well have met with Lewis. The play’s strength is considering how Freud and Lewis would have interacted if they met since they had opposing ideas about religion. Freud held that religious faith is essentially an irrational response connected to compensating for childhood trauma. Lewis had been interested in Freud’s views when he was an atheist but rejected Freud’s secularism by 1931 when he became a Christian.

Atheists need not fear that they will be converted to faith by the warm blandishments of Lewis; and believers will not be tempted to apostasy by the hardheaded arguments of Freud. But everyone, from the God-fearing to the agnostic to the strictly scientific, can be entertained by this well-written clash of wits and egos.

“Freud’s Last Session” is a deeply touching play filled with humor and exploring the minds, hearts and souls of two brilliant men addressing the greatest questions of all time.

Phil Warner as Sigmund Freud and Ben Heer as C. S. Lewis.