The Freud Files

by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen

  Anna Freud to Kris, 11 February (list of passages to cut): Letter 154. Omit: dreckology. Letter 155: ditto.42

  Here again, the result of this omission obscured the connections between these scatological hypotheses on the ontogenic recapitulation by the individual of the erotogenic zones abandoned in the course of phylogenesis and the theory of infantile sexuality put forward in the Three Essays in 1905. Confronted with concepts such as those of the ‘erotogenic zones’, of ‘polymorphous perversity’, of ‘reaction formation’, of ‘the latency period’, of ‘regression’ to the anal and oral stages, a reader would be unlikely to grasp that these notions were not derived from infant observation, but directly stemmed from the biogenic speculations which Freud shared with Fliess.43

  Freud to Fliess, 11 February 1897: I had been meaning to ask you, in connection with the eating of excrement [by] [illegible words] animals, when disgust first appears in small children and whether there exists a period in earliest infancy when these feelings are absent. Why do I not go into the nursery and experiment [omitted text: with Annerl (Anna Freud)]? Because with twelve-and-a-half hours’ work I have no time, and because the womanfolk do not back me in my investigations.44

  Freud to Fliess, 22 December 1897: Have you ever seen a foreign newspaper which passed Russian censorship at the frontier? Words, whole clauses and sentences are blacked out and the rest becomes unintelligible.45

  However it wasn’t only the most overtly speculative passages of the correspondence which succumbed to the censor, but also clinical vignettes. To Fliess, Freud described what transpired in his office in a raw manner. This makes the correspondence indispensable for reconstructing Freud’s practice at this time, notably during the period of the ‘seduction theory’. One can see how he threw ideas in the air and then ‘tested’ them on his patients,46 through insisting upon them until he had obtained the desired confirmation, and how he treated the slightest refusal as a ‘resistance’ to be conquered by all means possible.47 One also sees how his ‘pressure technique’ provoked spectacular states of trance in some of his patients, during which they ‘relived’ with intensity the scenes of seduction which he made them remember.48

  Freud to Fliess, 6 December 1896: In association, she recovered from her unconscious the memory of a scene in which (at the age of 4) she watched her papa, in the throes of sexual excitement, licking the feet of a wet nurse.49

  Freud to Fliess, 17 December 1896: Will you believe that the reluctance to drink beer and to shave was elucidated by a scene in which a nurse sits down podice nudo [with bare buttocks] in a shallow shaving bowl filled with beer in order to let herself be licked, and so on?50

  Freud to Fliess, 3 January 1897: She is suffering from eczema around her mouth and from lesions that do not heal in the corners of her mouth . . . (Once before I traced back entirely analogous observations to sucking on the penis.) In childhood (12 years) her speech inhibition appeared for the first time when, with a full mouth, she was fleeing from a woman teacher. Her father has a similarly explosive speech, as though his mouth were full. Habemus papam!51

  Freud to Fliess, 12 January 1897: Would you please try to search for a case of childhood convulsions that you can trace back (in the future or in your memory) to sexual abuse, specifically to lictus [licking] (or finger) in the anus . . . For my newest finding is that I am able to trace back with certainty a patient’s attack that merely resembled epilepsy to such treatment by the tongue on the part of his nurse. Age 2 years.52

  Freud to Fliess, 11 February 1897: Hysterical headache with sensation of pressure on the top of the head, temples, and so forth, is characteristic of the scenes where the head is held still for the purpose of actions in the mouth . . . Unfortunately my own father was one of these perverts and is responsible for the hysteria of my brother (all of whose symptoms are identifications) and those of several young sisters.53

  It was evidently not seen fit to publish such details, which, aside from the insight into Freud’s actual practice, serve to demonstrate how Freud extensively rewrote his seduction theory and the events leading to its abandonment in his subsequent historical recapitulations.

  Anna Freud to Kris, 11 February 1947: I am sending you notes which Martin [Freud] had given me, after he had read the unabridged correspondence. Naturally, the cuts were noted and it was only with a few points that he was not sure how far the cuts went . . . He is in favour of striking out the case histories which are not used in later works and have a purely perverse character, and as far as I can see it, the other sister endorses him . . . We were already in agreement not to leave everything from the period in which perverse fantasies appear as the precursor to infantile sexuality. But we have still left much.

  List of passages to eliminate: Letter 112 [6 December 1896] Paragraph “Hyst . . .” Omit! In the same letter: pages 10 and 11. Strike out the history of perversions!

  Letter following letter 113, dated in pencil 17.12.96. Page 2, second paragraph, the perversions with the governess ‘will you believe’ etc., strike out!

  Letter 119, page 249. ‘Unfortunately my father is’ absolutely strike out!

  Letter 141. The father as perverse, the words ‘not excluding my own father’, strike out.

  (one of the most beautiful letters!)54

  Kris to Anna Freud, 29 April 1947: It was my intention to leave out everything which could give an impression of excessive intimacy, everything which the details and the extent of the nose and heart complaints draws out before the death of his father . . . Further, I have left out what gives the impression of wildness in the case histories . . . and what here and there is too intimate in connection with these abridgements . . . I also think that the abridgement must go further . . . I have no bad conscience with the abridgements which I now recommend to you. On the contrary, perhaps we will decide to be still more radical.55

  Thus passages where Freud appeared to credit the possibility of a satanic sexual cult were omitted. Freud had been intrigued by the resemblance of the ‘scenes’ of perversion which he provoked in his patients and the accounts of diabolic debauchery extorted under torture by the judges in the Inquisition. Rather than being more circumspect concerning the ‘scenes’ of his patients, he ended by believing the veracity of the accounts of the poor ‘witches’, effectively taking sides with their torturers. Furthermore, he floated the hypothesis that the perverse acts which his patients had allegedly submitted to were part of a ritual practised by a secret satanic sect still active. Fliess was sceptical.56 As for Kris and Anna Freud, it was clear that the striking similarity between Freud’s therapy and the Inquisition would not go down well before the public. The passages reproduced here in italics corresponds to those which were eliminated.

  Freud to Fliess, 17 January 1897: But why did the devil who took possession of the poor things invariably abuse them sexually and in a loathsome manner? Why are their confessions under torture so like the communications made by my patients in psychic treatment? . . . Eckstein has a scene where the diabolus sticks needles into her fingers and then places a candy on each drop of blood. As far as blood is concerned, you are completely without blame!57

  Freud to Fliess, 24 January 1897: I am beginning to grasp an idea: it is as though in the perversions, of which hysteria is the negative, we have before us a remnant of a primeval sexual cult, which once was – perhaps still is – a religion in the Semitic East (Moloch, Astarte). Imagine, I obtained a scene about the circumcision of a girl. The cutting off of a piece of the labium minor (which is even shorter today), sucking up the blood, after which the child was given a piece of the skin to eat. This child, at age 13, once claimed that she could swallow a part of an earthworm and proceeded to do it. An operation you once performed was affected by a hemophilia that originated in this way . . . I dream, therefore, of a primeval devil religion with rites that continue to be carried on secretly, and understand the harsh therapy of the witches’ judges. Connecting links abound.58

  However, despite all the efforts of t
he censors, Freud’s letters to Fliess remained explosive. One could not conceal the fact that Freud had had an extremely intense friendship with Fliess. Furthermore, this relation appears more strange if one simultaneously depicts Fliess as a dangerous paranoiac: the further one tried to separate Freud from Fliess, the more pathological their intimacy appeared. Members of the Freudian family were concerned about this.

  Anna Freud to Kris, 29 October 1946: The Hoffers have both read the abridged version and seem to be impressed very positively, if also hesitating about the effect on the outer work in many points, almost identically as we did at that time. Ernst [Freud] is just now reading the unabridged version . . . But he seems to be more dismayed than impressed and thought that the manner of the friendly admiration for a man who in the end did not turn out to be a great man somehow gives a compromising impression.59

  Heinz Hartmann to Anna Freud, 17 March 1947: The story of the creation of psychoanalysis is at the same time the story of the creator’s crisis. This certainly does not surprise us; it would surprise us if this were not the case. But to the public these things are little known and somewhat incredible.60

  Siegfried Bernfeld to Anna Freud, 18 January 1950: I hope the book comes out soon. In my opinion it is great and important. On the other hand one may safely predict that the book will be followed by any number of publications explaining that Freud was a very sick man and that psychoanalysis fits only his own case.61

  Strachey to Jones, 24 October 1951: It’s really a complete instance of folie à deux, with Freud in the unexpected role of hysterical partner to a paranoia.62

  Jones to Strachey, 11 January 1954 (concerning the essay on Leonardo da Vinci): I don’t quite agree with what you say about Freud gradually reconciling himself to bisexuality. I think myself he was over-reconciled to it, if you see what I mean. He never really emancipated himself from Fliess and was avowedly struggling with that question in 1910 in Sicily. A lot of it then got passed on to Adler, Stekel, Jung and most of all to Ferenczi.63

  One had to have a therapy for this pathology. The solution had already been indicated by Freud, who had explained to some of his disciples that he had ‘succeeded’ where Fliess had sunk into delirium.

  Freud to Ferenczi, 6 October 1910: I no longer have need for that full opening of my personality . . . This need has been extinguished in me since Fliess’s case . . . A piece of homosexual investment has been withdrawn and utilized for the enlargement of my own ego. I have succeeded where the paranoiac fails.64

  In other words, Freud cured himself of his affection for Fliess. The ‘therapy’ that Kris was in search of had already been found, as it was nothing other than Freud’s self-analysis. This had enabled Freud to free himself from Fliess’ influence and to find his own original thoughts and psychic health at the same time. Consequently, the texts had to be presented in a manner to support this thesis. As one has seen, Freud’s self-analysis did not have a critical place in his letters to Fliess (six weeks of self-interpretation followed by an avowal of failure).65 Through Kris’ interpretation and censorship, it was elevated into the centre of the correspondence and featured as the fons et origo of psychoanalysis. This conformed with its progressive mythification in the psychoanalytic movement. In 1947, Kris had already claimed for psychoanalysis that ‘no other large body of hypotheses in recent science reveals to a similar extent the influence of one investigator’.66 In his introduction to the Fliess letters, he explained that it was due to the self-analysis begun in the summer of 1897 that Freud was able to gain ‘insight into the structure of the Oedipus complex, and thus into the central problem of psycho-analysis’;67 it enabled ‘the step from the seduction theory to full insight into the significance of infantile sexuality’68 (summer and autumn 1897), and then led to ‘insight into the role of erotogenic roles in the development of the libido’,69 to the interpretation of dreams (spring 1898), to the solution of the problem of forgotten acts (summer 1898) and finally to the comprehension of the relation between the theoretical investigation of dreams and the therapy of the neuroses (beginning of 1899). In this elegant chronology, it was necessary artificially to start the self-analysis in August rather than October 1897 (that is to say, after the first doubts concerning the seduction theory), to ignore that the erotogenic zones had already emerged in December 1896, to prolong the self-analysis until 1899, and to censor all the passages which showed that Freud continued to flirt with the hypothesis of ‘paternal aetiology’ until April 1898,70 well after the official abandonment of the seduction theory and the actual end of the self-analysis (November 1897). Above all, it was critical to attribute all these developments to Freud himself,71 to detach his theories from anything which connected them to those of Fliess, and more generally, from their historical and intellectual contexts. By making the self-analysis the mono-source of Freud’s theories, Kris promoted the myth of the self-engenderment of psychoanalysis as an ‘independent science’72 in a very effective manner. The so-called Freudian ‘epistemological break’,73 was, quite literally, the product of the censors’ scissors.

  There was a further advantage of Kris’ operation: it furnished an impeccably psychoanalytic explication of the origins of psychoanalysis, through making Freudian theory the product of a successful self-analysis. Thus therapy and science converged: Freud cured himself through unveiling the truth, and he saw the truth because he was cured. Thus the madness and folly of the letters were redeemed, as they were simply detours on the way to the cure that was truth, obstacles which Freud had to surmount in a heroic manner. In private, Kris thought that Freud had voluntarily made himself ill so as to be able to resolve the problem of the neuroses.

  Kris to Anna Freud, 7 December 1947: I think that Freud’s transformation after his self-analysis was so splendid because his neurosis became for him an instrument of research. I often think to myself that he allowed it so as to be able to solve the riddle. But I know very well that one can’t say such a thing and consider it as my private version of the hero cult I otherwise avoided.74

  In his introduction, Kris underlined the painful and uneven course of the self-analysis, the alternation of progress and resistance,75 and Freud’s mood swings during this period. But this simply underscored the fact that it was analytic work which enabled him to separate progressively from Fliess, through overcoming the unconscious conflicts which were the origin of his pathological attraction for his friend’s theories. (Ironically, it was actually Fliess who detached himself from Freud.) Kris’ explication was highly efficacious, and was immediately taken up by most of the Freudian family, who saw it as a riposte to the potential critiques that the publication of the letters could occasion. Bernfeld, to whom Kris showed his introduction in July 1949, proposed to accompany the publication of the letters with an article on Freud’s self-analysis, to drive this point home.

  Bernfeld to Anna Freud, 18 January 1950: That’s why I think of a paper on ‘Freud’s self-analysis’ showing how very small and irrelevant the neurotic symptoms are and clarifying the relationship between the self-analysis – which in my opinion is a great deed in itself – and the whole body of psychoanalytic method and content.76

  This consensus had been the effect of a compromise. In actual fact, in the first version of his introduction, Kris had gone much further in his description of the symptoms which Freud’s self-analysis was supposed to have cured. This had considerably alarmed Anna Freud and Marie Bonaparte, who feared that Freud would appear as ‘a serious and uncured neurotic’.77 To judge by a long letter addressed by Kris to Marie Bonaparte in November 1947, one of the contentious points78 between him and his two co-editors was his reference to the homosexual nature of the friendship between Freud and Fliess.

  Kris to Marie Bonaparte, 6 November 1947 (with a copy to Anna Freud): Your second concrete comment refers to a passage that reads (pp. 77/78): ‘Freud mentions repeatedly that his relationship with Fliess played a part in his self-analysis (see Letter 66, for instance). Several passages permit one to assume
that Freud realized that his relationship with Fliess was connected with the chief problem of the first phase of his self-analysis, his relations with his father (Letter 134), and the progress of the self-analysis seems to have facilitated his estrangement from Fliess.’ Your comments to this passage read: ‘People would conclude that Freud was homosexual. We know what you mean, others not.’ To this I should like to reply: Everybody who reads the letters – and I am referring only to the selection we publish – has got the impression of an unusually intimate friendship and of an attachment which, seen from the outside, suggests the proximity of sublimated homosexual tendencies. I am purposely here not referring to the unabridged text in which the reference to the nasal therapy tends to reinforce this impression. Freud himself repeatedly mentioned that the relation to Fliess played a role in Freud’s self-analysis (see for example Letter 66). From a few passages one is permitted to suspect that Freud came to the insight that his relation to Fliess was connected to the main problem of the first phase of his self-analysis, that is, the relation to the father and the feminine inclination (Letter 134). And it seems that the progress of the self-analysis made the separation from Fliess easier.79