The Freuds were able to move all of their furniture and household effects to London. The star exhibit in the museum is Freud's psychoanalytic couch. There are also Biedermeier chests, tables and cupboards, and a collection of 18th century and 19th century Austrian painted country furniture. The museum owns Freud's collection of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Oriental antiquities, and his personal library. The collection includes a portrait of Freud by Salvador Dalí.[1] The study and library were preserved by Anna Freud after her father's death. The bookshelf behind Freud's desk contains some of his favourite authors: not only Goethe and Shakespeare but also Heine, Multatuli and Anatole France. Freud acknowledged that poets and philosophers had gained insights into the unconscious which psychoanalysis sought to explain systematically. In addition to the books, the library contains various pictures hung as Freud arranged them; these include 'Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx' and 'The Lesson of Dr Charcot' plus photographs of Martha Freud, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Yvette Guilbert, Marie Bonaparte, and Ernst von Fleischl.
The museum organizes research and publication programmes and it has an education service which organises seminars, conferences and educational visits to the museum. The museum is a member of the London Museums of Health & Medicine.