The Freud Files

by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen

  Bezzola couldn’t have been clearer: Freud’s psychoanalysis – with its false interpretations and suggestions – had been superceded by his own psychosynthesis. It is worth noting here that Freud was not the only figure at this time who claimed that he was not imposing on the patient: Bezzola was using against him precisely the same argument that he was using to distinguish his method from other psychotherapeutic techniques. Freud viewed the situation differently. At this stage, he found no need to differentiate psychoanalysis from psychosynthesis.

  Freud to Jung, 7 April 1907: Bezzola’s work does not give me the impression of honesty . . . The appended remarks spring from a very hopeful personal cowardice. To deny that psychosynthesis is the same as psychoanalysis seems downright deceitful.126

  Jung’s relations with Bezzola soured. On 24 May, he described him to Freud as a ‘small and common soul’.127 Freud replied: ‘I have no reason to regard Bezzola and Frank as belonging to us.’128

  Frank and Bezzola’s project, to dissociate themselves from Freud and to propose a non-Freudian psychanalysis or psychosynthesis, had the complete support of Forel. From the moment when he realised how far Freud had departed from his original method, Forel became very critical of him. Just like Aschaffenburg and Hoche, he was disturbed by the arbitrariness of Freud’s interpretations, as well as by his increasing influence in Forel’s former institution, the Burghölzli. As his correspondence between 1907 and 1910 shows, he urged his disciples to take strong positions against the Freudian deviation, so as to be able to separate the ‘the true wheat from the chaff’.129

  Forel to Frank, 15 November 1907: This Freud cult disgusts me, just as it disgusts Bezzola. I leave open the question if the famous discovery of Freud is really his and doesn’t rather belong to Breuer, but it is certain that in Vienna, where people aren’t prudish, Freud has a very bad reputation which is not unfounded . . . It appears to me as if Bleuler is no longer the director of the Burghölzli, but Jung, and I am sorry.130

  Forel to Bezzola, 22 November 1907: For that reason you do not need to join any Freud club, by any means. For me, Freud himself is highly unsympathetic, but I think you will achieve more in your position if you confront Frank peacefully and frankly and if you sometime fight a battle with the Freud fools, than if you make way for them.131

  Forel to Bezzola, 21 September 1908: I have now a case in treatment (through hypnosis) that had been completely shattered through psychoanalysis of Freud & his school. The person became half crazy from outspoken ‘sexual’ interpretations of the most harmless things. I think there is a type of psychoanalysis that produces more complexes than it eliminates!132

  Bezzola to Forel, 22 August 1909: I hope to put the last touches to a more important publication sometime this January. The essential aim is to defend the sovereignty of the psychic against the foreign interpretations of its means of expression and to anticipate the objections of the Freudian school that I do not go the bottom of ‘complexes’.133

  Forel to Bezzola, 17 May 1910: It worries me that you haven’t written your book about your experiences. This is an urgent necessity. The whole question is completely corrupted and discredited by Freud and his clique. It is high time that the reasonable and scientific psychanalysts intervene with a serious and important work.134

  Not content with anti-Freudian agitation in the background, Forel wrote to Breuer, whom he had known since his student days in Vienna, to ask him to indicate precisely ‘which part of psychanalysis went back to him, what role he had in psychoanalysis’.135 Breuer obliged. He himself was responsible for ‘everything which directly followed from the case of Anna O.’ – the theory of hypnoid states and non-abreacted affective representations, the notion of retention hysteria and analytic therapy (Breuer first wrote ‘psychanalytic’). Freud was responsible for the notions of conversion, defence neuroses, and the accent placed on defence to the detriment of hypnoid states (hardly ‘to the benefit of his theory’, Breuer added). To both of them belonged the emphasis on ‘the prominent place assumed by sexuality’.136 Thus Breuer did not hesitate to claim his part in the discovery of the role of sexuality in hysteria. At the same time, just as he had done in Studies on Hysteria, he stressed the asexual character of Anna O.

  Breuer to Forel, 21 November 1907: The case of Anna O., which was the germinal cell of the whole of psychoanalysis, proves that a fairly severe case of hysteria can develop, flourish and be resolved without having a sexual basis.137

  Forel immediately forwarded his letter to Bezzola, recommending him to ‘read between the lines’:138 Breuer had stated that the analytic therapy directly derived from the case of Anna O. One could draw the conclusion that since this case lacked a ‘sexual basis’, true psychanalysis had nothing to do with the Freudians’ sexuality and ‘fabrication of complexes’.139

  Forel, 1908: On the other hand, the psychanalytic method discovered by Breuer and Freud is very important, thanks to which one can eliminate the pathogenic effect of emotional traumas and the possibility that they continue to exercise devastating supplementary effects in the subconscious cerebral life through enabling them to be relived. However, on this point Freud has also made a unilateral construction and simply abandoned the foundation of suggestion and hypnosis, whereas in reality all these phenomena should be studied and understood in their harmonious interdependence. When one proceeds differently, as when one bores into the research of so-called complexes, one risks, in the numerous cases where these continually come to the surface, arriving at a noxious training of the brain, a fabrication of complexes which can be particularly disastrous in the case of sexual complexes.140

  Discussions concerning psychoanalysis continued at the International Congress for Psychiatry, Neurology and Psychology in Amsterdam in September 1907. The controversy was becoming internationalised. Freud had initially been invited, along with Janet.

  Freud to Jung, 14 April 1907: When I was invited, Aschaffenburg was not to be the other speaker; two were mentioned, Janet and a native. Apparently a duel was planned between Janet and myself, but I detest gladiatorial fights in front of the noble rabble and cannot easily bring myself to put my findings to the vote of an indifferent crowd.141

  If a Freud–Janet duel was not to be, owing to Freud’s no-show, there was still another duel on offer.

  Monatschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie: The Jung–Aschaffenburg duel was looked forward to with great anticipation by many German-speaking participants.142

  The fifth session was on hysteria, and featured presentations by Janet, Aschaffenburg, Jung and Gerbrandus Jelgersma. Janet opened the session by presenting a résumé of his work on hysteria. Aschaffenburg followed, limiting himself to a discussion of Freud’s method of free association and Jung’s association experiments: why did Freud and his followers find sexual complexes so frequently? To answer this question, Aschaffenburg narrated a case of obsessional neurosis which he had treated to test the Freudian method. This was clearly a response to Jung’s previous paper, and Aschaffenburg claimed that this case demonstrated how thoughts could be led in a certain direction.

  Aschaffenburg: The Freudian and Jungian method results in sexual representations, because it promotes the emergence of sexual representations through directing and often really forcing attention to the sexual sphere.143

  Freud and Jung thus suggested the associations they claimed only to observe. His own researches had convinced Aschaffenburg that such an investigation was embarrassing and potentially harmful for the patient and that the success of the treatment did not surpass that of other harmless methods.

  Aschaffenburg was followed by Jung, who opened by stressing that if he restricted himself to Freud, it was not out of disregard for the outstanding work of Charcot, Moebius, Strumpell, Janet, Sollier, Vogt, Binswanger, Krehl and Dubois (interestingly enough, this statement was cut when Jung republished the paper later the same year). The best way to understand Freud’s work, Jung claimed, was through a historical overview.

  Jung: The theo
retical presuppositions for the mental work of Freudian research lie above all else in the knowledge of Janetian experiments. Breuer and Freud’s first formulation of the problem of hysteria starts from the facts of psychic dissociation and of unconscious psychic automatisms. A further presupposition so emphatically stressed by Binswanger among others is the aetiological significance of affects. Both these presuppositions together with the experiences drawn from the theory of suggestion result in the currently generally recognised view of hysteria as a psychogenic neurosis. Freud’s research is directed to finding by which means and in what manner the mechanism of the production of hysterical symptoms works.144

  Jung proceeded to give an account of Freud’s theoretical development. Jung referred throughout to psychanalysis, sans ‘o’. Jung noted, admittedly, that the present psychanalytic method was much more complicated than the original cathartic method, and took two years of extensive practice to be able to use with any security.145 But he also added that this brought it close to other contemporary methods.

  Jung: In this respect the new Freudian method has a great similarity with Dubois’ method of education . . . Bezzola’s method of psychosynthesis on the other hand is a direct, very interesting further development of the Breuer–Freud cathartic method of abreaction. The theoretical basis of Freudian psychanalytic method, which has grown entirely through practical empiricism, is still covered in a deep darkness. Through my association research I think that I have at least made a few points accessible to experimental investigation, though all theoretical difficulties have still not yet been overcome.146

  One can only presume that, on reading this, Freud may well have had second thoughts about deciding not to attend this congress. In Jung’s history the basic presuppositions of his own research lay principally in Janet’s work on dissociation and automatisms, coupled with the work of Otto Binswanger, suggestion theory (i.e., Bernheim and Forel) and the generally recognised notion of hysteria as a psychogenic neurosis. In addition, Freud’s new method was linked with Dubois and placed alongside Bezzola’s. Jung was clearly attempting to recruit allies and was casting his net as widely as possible. However, this had the effect of completely diluting the specificity of psychoanalysis as Freud understood it. What is worse, Jung suggested that the deep darkness which lay over the theoretical basis of Freud’s method was being clarified through the light shed by Jung’s own association experiments. Freud could not have failed to notice the similarities with Frank and Bezzola. Freud was in danger of becoming a bystander, a footnote in the history of the psychanalytic movement.

  Jung’s paper ran over time and was cut short.

  Ernest Jones: Unfortunately [Jung] made the mistake of not timing his paper and also of refusing to obey the chairman’s repeated signal to finish. Ultimately he was compelled to, whereupon with a flushed angry face he strode out of the room. I remember the unfortunate impression his behaviour made on the impatient and already prejudiced audience, so there can be no doubt about the issue of the debate.147

  In the discussion, the issue of the possibility of replication of Freud’s results was raised once again. Otto Gross noted that the whole debate centred around the question of whether the Freudian method could be verified without a knowledge of the special Freudian technique. Frank repeated his and Jung’s claim that those who had not practised the method themselves could not judge it. To this, Heilbronner replied that in his clinic in Utrecht his assistant Schnitzler had made experiments concerning the existence of affectively stressed complexes, and the results had been negative. The discussion was concluded by Pierre Janet, whose prior references to Freud in his works had so far been respectful. This was not to be the case this time.

  Janet: The first work of Breuer and Freud on hysteria is to my mind an interesting contribution to the work of French doctors, who for fifteen years have analysed the mental states of hysterics by means of hypnotism or automatic writing. The French authors have shown certain interesting cases in which the fixed subconscious ideas played a great role. Breuer and Freud have shown similar cases, but they have immediately generalised and have declared that all hysteria is constituted by subconscious fixed ideas of this kind. In a second study they have noted problems of the genital sense in certain hysterics. This is perfectly exact: one notes fixed ideas of an erotic order with some hysterics, insufficiency of the sexual sense, or more or less light perversions of the genital instincts. This is incontestable and this has been described many times with a great depth of pathological analysis. But why generalise these true observations in a completely excessive manner, why declare that all hysteria consists in this genital perturbation of several patients?148

  In other words, what was good in psychoanalysis was not new, and stemmed from Janet’s own work. What was new was not good, and could safely be left to Freud.

  Freud Inc.149

  Psychoanalysis was not faring well in open debate at psychiatric congresses. If Bleuler and Jung’s advocacy had put psychoanalysis on the map, there was the very real danger that it would now be publicly tested, disproven and discarded by leading psychiatrists. So a new plan of action took shape. On 30 November 1907, Jung informed Freud that a new arrival, Dr Jones from London, together with Jung’s friends from Budapest150 had suggested a congress of Freudian followers. On 30 January 1908, Jung informed Karl Abraham that he was not going to invite Bezzola, and asked Abraham to find more participants, ‘provided that they are people with pro-Freudian interests. Please would you stress in each case the private nature of the project.’151 The ‘First Congress for Freudian Psychology’, which took place at the end of April in Salzburg, was to be a secret admittance by invitation only event, with no criticism allowed. This private meeting, which set the tone for future psychoanalytic congresses across the world, represented a return to Freud’s weekly meetings with his disciples in Vienna. Once again, Freud could see his ideas replicated by the kaleidoscope which Wittels referred to.

  However, what Bleuler would later call the politics of the closed door did not entirely solve the situation; far from it. In accordance with a pattern which would be constantly repeated, the controversies which the Freudians attempted to evade externally soon resurfaced internally. Ultimately, there was little difference between the external debates and the internal dissensions.

  Already at the first meeting at Salzburg, a conflict arose between Jung and Abraham, who had previously worked under Jung and Bleuler at the Burghölzli. Both presented papers on dementia praecox (which would soon be termed ‘schizophrenia’ by Bleuler), and whilst Abraham attempted to apply Freud’s libido theory to its elucidation, Jung presented his view that the loss of reality in dementia praecox could not be explained on the basis of the libido theory, and indeed, that the condition could not be explained purely psychogenically, and invoked an unknown toxin as a possible aetiological factor. Whilst Abraham did not mention his former superiors at the Burghölzli, aside from a few gestures of praise, Jung’s paper was basically independent of Freud’s work. Freud interpreted this doctrinal dispute betwen Jung and himself as a priority dispute between Abraham and Jung.

  Ernst Falzeder: The controversy between Abraham and Jung amounted to a ‘war by proxies’. Both spoke not only for themselves, but also for Freud and Bleuler respectively and let us repeat that Abraham had himself been a member of the Burghölzli team . . . Freud had actively encouraged Abraham to present his paper and even assured him that it would not bring him into conflict with Jung . . . Thus it seems that Freud had brought about the very conflict he then deplored. He then tried to obfuscate that fact and to put the blame on Abraham and Jung. In the aftermath of the Congress, Freud reinterpreted the conflict as a priority dispute between Abraham and Jung; a conflict over the priority of being the first to solve the riddle of schizophrenia with the help of psychoanalysis. Simultaneously, however, Freud made it perfectly clear that the actual priority was with himself.152

  This set the tone for how Freud would attempt to settle disputes within his m
ovement, through arranging his followers in a hierarchical manner and asserting his authority. In reframing his horizontal conflict with Jung into one between his disciples, Freud was arrogating the right to intervene in the debate vertically, from a position of uncontested authority. This strategy furnished the model which Freud would follow in subsequent internal conflicts: each time one of his collaborators attempted to have an open discussion with him as between equals, as his psychiatric colleagues had attempted to do from the exterior, he reduced him to the status of a pupil, leaving him no choice but to toe the line or quit the movement and join the growing crowd of his critics. Hence, the boundary between the interior and the exterior of the movement was extremely fluid and was constantly being redrawn as a result of expulsions. The closed door began to resemble a revolving door.

  At the same juncture, there were significant moves on the outside. In 1908, Forel published an article proposing the idea of a general association of psychotherapy.153 Assessing the current state of the discipline, he noted the undesirable presence of all sorts of pseudo-therapists: ‘Charlatans, magnetic healers, the New York Institute of Science, Lourdes miracle workers, Spas, Naturepaths and co.’.154 By contrast, there were the anti-suggestive therapies of Lévy and Dubois, advocating persuasion and the will based on a confused dualist psychology. Then there was the psychanalytic method of Breuer and Freud, which represented a very important development. Unfortunately, Freud had developed his earlier studies in a unilateral manner, abitrarily discarding hypnosis and suggestion, instead of studying phenomena in their interdependence. Faced with this regrettable situation, Forel proposed to create a truly scientific international society of psychotherapy. He added that the aim of such a society was essentially to organise annual congresses which would draw together psychotherapists of all tendencies, without exclusions. In August 1909, Forel sent a circular letter to the main representatives of European psychotherapy, including Freud and Jung, to invite them to join the International Society of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, which he proposed to establish with Oskar Vogt and Ludwig Frank. Forel felt that the lack of coordination between the different orientations of psychotherapy was a critical problem. He wanted to create order in this ‘tower of Babel’155 by facilitating scientific exchanges and through establishing ‘a clear international terminology, capable of being accepted in a general manner by different people’.156