The Freud Files

by Borch-Jacobsen, Mikkel; Shamdasani, Sonu;

  Forel, circular of August 1909: On the one hand, psychotherapy is completely neglected by the faculties of medicine; on the other hand, it consists in individual attempts which are entirely dispersed, without links between them. In the congresses, one has rarely had the time to discuss the important questions which are brought in: hypnotism, suggestion, psychanalysis, in the measure insofar as these meetings are occupied with other subjects.157

  Forel, first Congress of the International Society of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy (7–8 August 1910):158 Hypnotic suggestion (there is little difference if it is employed in the waking or sleeping state) and psychanalysis are psycho-therapeutic agents of the first order and have proved reliable. Yet today one is supremely unaware of them in the medical faculties, just as one ignores the true scientific psychology.159

  Forel, official announcement of the foundation of the International Society of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy: [Psychotherapy] thus comprises, above all, therapeutic suggestion, psychanalysis and analogous methods, based directly on a well-understood psychology . . . But scorned and neglected in general by the faculties of medicine, psychology and psychiatry have been studied above all by autodidacts who have formed special or local schools, such as at Paris, Nancy, Vienna, etc., schools which have each developed according to their special ideas, without contact with the others, without in-depth scientific discussions, without agreement on terms.

  As a result of this situation, it seems to me that many things are highly necessary. 1 Obtain an international agreement to help the scientific discussions in the domain which occupies us – agreement on the facts and on the terms.

  2 Unify neurological science and make it known in all its branches by the faculties of medicine.160

  Freud and Jung had already left to attend the Clark Conference and to conquer America. They found Forel’s circular on their return at the beginning of October. By that time, the Society had already been founded.161 The formation of this society placed them in an unexpectedly awkward position. Forel proposed to draw together the diverse psychotherapies, without according a special status to psychoanalysis. Forel and Frank were taking the reins, under the banner of a true scientific psychology, and were offering Freud and Jung a back seat in the new organisation. After a long hesitation, Freud and Jung nevertheless decided to accept Forel’s invitation in mid November, so as not to leave the field to their rivals.162 The same month, at a professional meeting of Swiss psychiatrists, Forel and Jung made an alliance to isolate Constantin von Monakow, co-founder with Paul Dubois of a third association of psychotherapists, the Society of Neurologists.163 In December, Forel sent Freud a dedicated copy of the eleventh edition of his book Brain and Soul.164 More surprising yet, Freud briefly envisaged infiltrating the International Order for Ethics and Culture of Pastor Kneipp, an organisation in which Forel actively participated, before abandoning the idea on Jung’s advice.165

  Jung to Freud, 11 February 1910: PsA makes me ‘proud and discontent’, I dont want to attach it to Forel, that hair-shirted John of the Locust, but would like to attach it with everything that was ever dynamic and alive . . . I shall submit this crucial question for PsA to the Nuremberg Congress.166

  In the meantime, the idea of an International Association of Psychoanalysis had germinated, formally grouping together adherents to Freud’s doctrine. The timing was clearly not accidental.

  Freud to Ferenczi, 1 January 1910: Incidentally, what do you think of a tighter organisation with formal rules and a small fee? Do you consider this advantageous? I also wrote Jung a couple of words about this.167

  Ferenczi to Freud, 2 January 1910: I find your suggestion (tighter organization) extremely useful. The acceptance of members, however, would be just as strictly managed as it is in the Vienna Society; that would be a way of keeping out undesirable elements.168

  Meanwhile, discussions continued to rage concerning psychoanalysis. On 29 March, there was a heated debate on psychoanalysis at the Medical Society in Hamburg, following a talk by Jan van Embden on the psychoneuroses. Embden launched an attack on psychoanalysis. He argued that the significant role which Freud attributed to sexuality had not been proven, and that the success of Freud’s theory, like that of Dubois, rested on suggestion and education. He warned against referring patients to asylums where psychoanalysis was practised (in all likelihood, his main target was the Burghölzli). In the discussion, Trömner argued that the basic elements of Freud’s theory of hysteria were fine (i.e., the conversion of non-abreacted affects), but that Freud had erected monstrous theories from Breuer’s correct starting point. As for Freud’s interpretations of dreams, he notes that they were nearly identical to those which had been proposed long ago by Scherner. Max Nonne noted that, following Emil Kraepelin and Theodore Ziehen, most German psychiatrists were critical of psychoanalysis. He argued that sexual traumas were actually common in childhood, but that they were not the causes of traumas in the Freudian sense. Like Embden, he stated that he would not let a patient in a sanatorium be treated in a Freudian manner.169

  Shortly after the Hamburg discussion, the Freudians regrouped, and the creation of the International Psychoanalytic Association was formally announced at the Nuremberg Congress (30–31 March 1910). At Nuremberg, Ferenczi presented a rationale for the new organisation. Presenting a heroic account of Freud’s struggle against opposition, he maintained that from the beginning psychoanalysts had been met with empty invective, and that hence ‘we were thus, very much against our will, involved in a war’.170

  Ferenczi: New workers streamed into the new scientific field discovered by Freud just as they had streamed in the wake of Amerigo to the new continent discovered by Columbus, and they too had to, and still have to, conduct guerrilla warfare, just as the pioneers in the New World did.171

  If Freud was Columbus, it followed that other psychologists and psychiatrists had to take the role of the American Indians. Ferenczi, waxing strategic, noted that this warfare waged by the psychoanalysts had not been successful thus far, because of the lack of central direction and the self-serving conduct of some psychoanalysts. The time had come to rectify this by forming a centralised organisation. This would have the advantage of segregating others who took an independent interest in psychoanalysis. Such ‘friends’, he claimed, were more dangerous than enemies. As an example he cited psycho-synthesis, without even mentioning Bezzola by name. Thus, for Ferenczi, the formation of the IPA was justified as much by the neccesity to defend against undesirable allies as by the need to rally the troups against the enemies. Later that same year, Freud echoed Ferenczi’s reasoning.

  Freud: Neither I myself nor my friends and co-workers find it agreeable to claim a monopoly in this way in the use of a medical technique. But in face of the dangers to patients and to the cause of psycho-analysis which are inherent in the practice that is to be foreseen of a wild psycho-analysis, we have had no other choice. In the spring of 1910 we founded an International Psycho-Analytical Association, to which its members declare their adherence by the publication of their names, in order to be able to repudiate responsibility for what is done by those who do not belong to us and yet call their medical procedure psycho-analysis. For as a matter of fact wild analysts of this kind do more harm to the cause of psycho-analysis than to individual patients.172

  By wild psychoanalysts, Freud evidently had figures such as Bezzola and Frank in mind.

  In his ‘History of the psychoanalytic movement’, Freud justified the creation of the IPA by the necessity of drawing the ranks together, ‘since official science had pronounced its solemn ban upon psycho-analysis’.173 However, it is clear that the IPA was first and foremost a means of resisting psychoanalysis being swallowed up by the competition represented by Forel and his friends. As Freud explained to Bleuler in October of the same year, one of the ‘reasons for organizing a society’ was ‘the need to present to the public genuine psychoanalysis and protect it from imitations (counterfeits) which would soon arise’.174 We hav
e become so used to considering psychoanalysis as Freudian that we do not even consider that there could have been non-Freudian psychanalysts. But this is a retrospective (asymmetric) illusion, which grants victory to the IPA over rival organisations. At the time, the strict identification of psychoanalysis with Freud was by no means self-evident. As we have seen, there was widespread debate concerning who could rightfully claim possession of Breuer’s heritage. In this respect, the creation of the IPA was an attempt to gain the upper hand in the (symmetric) mimetic rivalry between the Freudians and the Forelians. Which one was to conquer the new continent of psychotherapy: psychanalysis according to Breuer, Forel and Frank, or psychoanalysis according to Freud and his followers? Without much exaggeration, one could say that before splitting into rival schools, the IPA itself was the product of a schism within the psych(o)analytic movement.

  Around the same time, Frank published a book titled Psychanalysis,175 in which he openly advocated return of psychanalysis to Breuer, critiquing the Freudian deviation. Unsurprisingly, Freud did not appreciate this.

  Freud to Jung, 22 April 1910: On the other hand it was with pure distaste that I read Frank’s cowardly and abject book on psychoanalysis, in which he naturally accuses me of exaggerating the importance of sexuality and then proceeds to go me one better.176

  Initially, however, the relations between the Forelians and the Freudians were not completely openly hostile. We have already seen signs of this fact.

  Frank attended the Nuremberg Psychoanalytic Congress177 (one can imagine what he would have made of Ferenczi’s harangue) and Ernest Jones went to the first congress of Forel’s society in Brussels in August 1910178 (Freud himself had declined Vogt’s invitation, as usual).179 The appearance was that the Freudians were continuing to play the game of scientific exchanges. However, one incident at the time of the inauguration of the International Psychoanalytic Association revealed that this was not a scholarly society like others. The psychiatrist Max Isserlin, who had written a critical review of Jung’s The Psychology of Dementia Praecox,180 requested permission to attend the Nuremberg conference.

  Jung to Freud, 2 March 1910: I beg you to let me know by return whether we should allow such vermin to come to N. [Nuremberg]. Myself, I’d rather not have the bastard around, he might spoil one’s appetite. But our splendid isolation must come to an end one day.181

  Freud to Jung, 6 March 1910: I too believe that our isolation must come to an end some day, and then we shall not have to hold separate congresses. But I think that day is still far off and that we can do with other guests than Isserlin.182

  Isserlin was barred from attending. The incident shocked many, since such exclusive practices were unheard of in medicine and psychiatry at this time. Emil Kraepelin was furious.183 It was in this context that Hoche, two months later, gave a paper to the congress of neurologists and psychiatrists of south-west Germany in Baden entitled ‘A psychic epidemic among doctors’. His accusation was clear: the Freudians were behaving like a cult.

  Hoche, 28 May 1910: In a surprising manner, a great number of disciples, some clearly fanatical, have presented themselves to Freud and follow where he leads them. To speak of this as a Freudian school is in reality completely misplaced, as it is a question not of facts which are scientifically provable or demonstrable, but of articles of faith; in truth, if I leave aside a few more considered heads, it is a community of believers, a sort of sect, with all the characteristerics which go along with this . . . To become a member of the sect isn’t at all easy. This demands a long novitiate which is ideally terminated by the master himself. At the same time, not anyone can become a disciple, but only those who have faith. He who does not believe has no success, and with few exceptions, cannot speak. What is common with all the members of the sect is the high degree of veneration for the Master, which only perhaps finds its analogue in the personality cult of the circle of Bayreuth [i.e., around Wagner] . . . The Freudian movement is in fact a return, under a modern form, of a medicina magica, a secret doctrine which can only be practised by qualified interpreters of signs.184

  As for Bleuler, he was so taken aback by the Isserlin incident that he was reluctant to join the new association. Not content with having barred Isserlin from attending the congress, the Freudians had decided to restrict membership of the IPA to the faithful. Bleuler considered that such exclusionary tactics had no place in a scientific society, and he wrote a long letter to Freud on 13 October 1910 to try to persuade him to reverse this decision.185 Diplomatic initiatives were launched to get Bleuler on board. Even dream analysis was enlisted in the cause. Jung wrote to Freud on why Bleuler hadn’t joined:

  Jung to Freud, 13 November 1910: The dream tells what the real reason [for Bleuler’s resistance] is. It is not as he says, that Stekel is in the society; I am the one who is holding him back. He throws Isserlin in my face, obviously as a screen for his homosexual resistance.186

  At the beginning of 1911, Bleuler finally relented. However, as we will see, this was not to last long. The revolving door started to turn.

  Indeed, whilst these external conflicts were raging, they were compounded by internal conflicts at the very centre of the movement, between Freud and Alfred Adler, his most talented follower in Vienna. In the years following the Salzburg conference, rivalry and conflict between Freud’s Viennese and Swiss followers had intensified, as Freud attempted to shift the seat of power to Zurich to forge an international movement. In 1910, Adler and Wilhelm Stekel became the editors of a newly formed journal, the Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, formed in part as a rival to the Swiss-dominated Jahrbuch. When the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society began to formalise itself, Adler was appointed its first president in 1910. Adler’s own views increasingly diverged from Freud. In essence, they were as little of Freudian inspiration as Jung’s ideas on dementia praecox or Bezzola’s psychosynthetic procedures. Freud’s response? Diagnosis.

  Freud to Jung, 25 November 1910: My spirits are dampened by the irritation with Adler and Stekel, with whom it is very hard to get along. You know Stekel, he is having a manic period . . . Adler is a very decent and intelligent man, but he is paranoid; in the Zentralblatt he puts so much stress on his almost unintelligible theories that the readers must be utterly confused . . . He is always claiming priority, putting new names on everything, complaining that he is disappearing under my shadow, and forcing me into the unwelcome role of the aging despot who prevents young men from getting ahead.187

  Freud to Jung, 3 December 1910: It is getting really bad with Adler. You see a resemblance to Bleuler; in me he awakens the memory of Fliess; but an octave lower. The same paranoia.188

  With this simple step, his theories could be dismissed. For Freud, Adler’s recent presentation ‘suffers from paranoid vagueness’.189

  Freud to Ferenczi, 16 December 1910: I have now overcome Fliess, which you were so curious about. Adler is a little Fliess redivivus, just as paranoid. Stekel, his appendage, is at least called Wilhelm.190

  Freud to Jones, 26 February 1911: But [Adler] is of a morbid sensibility . . . Adler’s views were clever, but wrong and dangerous to the spreading of PsA, his motives and his behaviour are all throughout of neurotic nature.191

  Ferenczi to Freud, 17 March 1911: You are not only the discoverer of new psychological facts but also the physician who treats us physicians. As such you have to bear the burdens of transference and resistance. It is, of course, unpleasant when you have to deal with incurable or not easily accessible physicians (e.g., an infantile perverse Stekel and a paranoid Adler).192

  This pathologisation of dissent not only enabled the delegitimation of Adler’s theoretical innovations, it also mitigated a predictable rejoinder by Freud’s critics: ‘even your own psycho-analysts don’t agree with you!’ Indeed, if Adler remained a psychoanalyst – and one with a prominent institutional position and in a powerful position with regard to psychoanalytic literature – Freud’s defences against his critics would simply backfire. The simple rejoinder th
at the views of critics were nullified because they hadn’t practised psychoanalysis now posed a serious problem when someone such as Adler, one of the founding members of Freud’s Wednesday psychological society from 1902, presented views which in critical respects coincided with those of Freud’s critics.

  Freud to Jung, 3 December 1910: The crux of the matter – and that is what really alarms me – is that he [Adler] minimizes the sexual drive and our opponents will soon be able to speak of an experienced psychoanalyst whose conclusions are radically different from ours.193