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William I. Grossman’s contributions to psychoanalysis have been inadequately recognised, possibly because his writings are dense and it is difficult to draw out all the meaning. In one of his most important works, he gives a remarkable description of Freud’s systematic manner of imagining, thinking and theorising, which was long before he created psychoanalysis. In Freud, this way of thinking illustrates both his theories and the structure of his thought itself; it is flexible, capable of development, hierarchically organised and recursive. Reading Grossman opens a window on to Freud’s text that gives new insights. This includes the idea that the concept of « transformative translation », as a perception of creativity in Freud’s mode of thought, could help psychoanalysts from different cultures and thought-systems to communicate beyond their frontiers. A. Green’s concept of the « pathological negative » serves as an example to show how « Grossman’s Freud » can facilitate this communication between different cultures and theories.