The Freud Files

by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen

  182. Jones (1953), 3–4.

  183. Ibid., 254.

  184. Ibid., 255. This description was sharply contested by Breuer’s daughter-in-law; see Borch-Jacobsen (1996), Appendix 2.

  185. Jones (1953), 225.

  186. See above, p. 170, where we reproduce the letter in question.

  187. Jones (1953), 225.

  188. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. Cf. Freud (1925a), 20 and 25.

  189. See above, pp. 168f.

  190. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  191. Freud (1953–74), vol. 2, 40–1.

  192. Jones (1953), 255.

  193. Ibid., 252.

  194. Ibid., 360.

  195. Jones (1955), 12–13.

  196. Jones (1953), 271. We will compare with the document entitled ‘Freud in Paris’ which Marie Bonaparte sent to Jones and in which she reported what Freud had said to her on 8 April 1928 about his 1885–6 stay in Paris: ‘Then Freud went, with his friend, into a café, and there, the friend invited five or six “respectable” women to their table. One, who had a suspicious efflorescence on her nose, prided herself on undressing in just seconds.’ Freud had added, it is true: ‘Everything with these ladies was limited to a few drinks’ (Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society).

  197. Jones (1953), 139.

  198. Jones (1955), 421; see also 386: ‘His wife was assuredly the only woman in Freud’s love life, and she came first before all other mortals.’ Here, however, is what Helen Puner, who gained this information from dissidents like Jung and Stekel, had to say: ‘Early in their marriage he came to regard his wife with the same analytic detachment he regarded a neurotic symptom’ (Puner 1947, 136). Max Schur, likewise, expressed his disbelief about Jones’ description in a letter to him on 30 September 1955: ‘As to Martha – here I have my doubts whether at the time I knew them she still was the “one and only”. As far as I could see it, he spent less and less time with her . . . there was so little left of the great love that I was quite surprised by Volume I [the account of the engagement]’ (Anna Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC).

  199. Jones (1955), 386.

  200. To Ferenczi, who had developed the habit of exchanging kisses with his patients, he wrote: ‘Now I am assuredly not one of those who from prudishness or from consideration of bourgeois convention would condemn little erotic gratification of this kind’ (Freud and Ferenczi 2000, 479). To James Jackson Putnam, Freud wrote: ‘I stand for a much freer sexual life. However, I have made little use of such freedom, except in so far as I was convinced of what was permissible for me in this area’ (Hale 1971, 189). This issue is taken by Peter Swales in ‘Did Freud always carry an umbrella – or – did he ever take a cab?’ (Swales 1994).

  201. Jones (1955), 5.

  202. Bettelheim (1957), 419. Rumours had circulated in Vienna about a liaison between Freud and Minna Bernays, which Jung later corroborated. ‘Jung: This is a fact: the youngest sister made a giant transference and Freud was not insensible [in English in the text], – Eissler: You mean, there was a liaison with the youngest sister? – Jung: Oh, a liaison!? I don’t know to what extent!? But, my God, we know very well how it is, don’t we!?’ (typewritten interview of 29 August 1953, 11; also see Billinsky 1969 and Swales 1982b). The testimony of Max Graf, father of ‘Little Hans’, is just as ambiguous: ‘Graf: I had the impression that there was something strange in the relationship with the sister-in-law . . . But as things weren’t very clear, I didn’t want to speak publicly about it . . . – Eissler: Did he have sexual relations with her? – Graf: I don’t believe so’ (Graf 1995–6, 155). These are the rumours that Jones surreptitiously evoked when he wrote: ‘Freud no doubt appreciated [Minna Bernays’] conversation, but to say that she in any way replaced her sister in his affection is sheer nonsense’ (Jones 1955, 387).

  203. Ibid., 3.

  204. Jones (1953), 255.

  205. Jones (1955), 137; Jones quoting Freud.

  206. Ibid., 7.

  207. Ibid., 33.

  208. Ibid., 62.

  209. Ibid., 82.

  210. Ibid., 130.

  211. Ibid., 160.

  212. Ibid., 112 and 118.

  213. Ibid., 114: Jones quoting Freud.

  214. Ibid., 115.

  215. Ibid., 114.

  216. Ibid., 117.

  217. Ibid., 40.

  218. Ibid., 256.

  219. Ibid., 114.

  220. Ibid., 117.

  221. Jones (1953), 361.

  222. Jones (1955), 115.

  223. Ibid., 108–9.

  224. Lilla Veszy-Wagner to Ernest Jones, 29 January 1954, Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  225. These abstracts can be consulted in the Jones Archive collection of the Institute of Psycho-Analysis in London. Insofar as certain abstracts are reproduced word for word in Jones’ biography, we are led to conclude that he hadn’t read for himself some of the articles he was ridiculing.

  226. Jones (1955), 111; quoted by Lilla Veszy-Wagner in her abstract of Spielmeyer (1905).

  227. Jones (1955), 116; this supposed quotation from Hoche (1910) was in fact an adaptation of the abstract by Lilla Veszy-Wagner.

  228. Jones (1955), 111; quoted by Lilla Veszy-Wagner in her abstract of Rieger (1896); ‘simply’ was added by Jones.

  229. ‘Notes on Defamatory Passages by J. E. C. Macfarlane, 27.1.55’, Hogarth Press Archives, University of Reading.

  230. Veszy-Wagner (1966), 119.

  231. ‘Notes on Defamatory Passages by J. E. C. Macfarlane, 27.1.55’, 5, Hogarth Press Archives, University of Reading.

  232. Hogarth Press Archives, University of Reading.

  233. Ibid.

  234. Ibid.

  235. Jung (1975), 144. Jones referred to Freud’s fainting at Bremen in Jones (1955), 61.

  236. Bennet (1985), 114. In the unpublished version of Bennet’s notebooks, Jung told Bennet on 16 September 1959 that Jones never had any original ideas and never liked him. On 19 September, he noted that Jones was mistaken to claim that it was Freud and Ferenczi who had persuaded him to break his vow of abstinence from alcohol (required of all physicians at the Burghölzli) to drink wine in August 1909 (Jones 1955, 61), as he had already left the Burghölzli, and celebrated by going drinking (Bennet Papers, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich). Alphonse Maeder recalled that on occasion, at a meeting of the Swiss Society of Psychiatry, ‘Bleuler made a violent storm of abuse . . . against the assistants who let themselves abandon abstinence (Jung after his trip with Freud in the USA, and myself later); and went so far as to say that if he had seen this in advance, he would not have introduced psychoanalysis into the Burghölzli’ (Maeder to Ellenberger, 1 March 1967, Centre Henri Ellenberger, Hôpital Sainte-Anne, Paris).

  237. Jones (1957), 45.

  238. Freud and Ferenczi (2000), 15.

  239. On this edifying episode, see Lieberman (1985).

  240. Freud and Ferenczi (2000), 215.

  241. Quoted in Jones (1957), 76.

  242. Wortis (1954), 121. In 1926, the American psychiatrist Martin Peck had abandoned the idea of being analysed by Rank after hearing that Jones considered him to be ‘hypomanic’ (Lieberman 1985, 268).

  243. Jones (1957), 12–13.

  244. Ibid., 47.

  245. Ibid., 58.

  246. Ibid., 74.

  247. Ibid., 77.

  248. Ibid.

  249. Sigmund Freud to Marie Bonaparte, 11 September 1932; quoted in ibid., 174.

  250. Sigmund Freud to Max Eitingon, 3 April 1933; quoted in Gay (1988), 585.

  251. Freud and Jones (1993), 721; our emphasis.

  252. Jones (1957), 176.

  253. Ibid., 178.

  254. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  255. Ibid.

  256. Ibid. Publicly, Balint expressed his disagreement with
Jones much more mutedly and prudently in a letter that was published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis with a response from Jones (Balint 1958). Commenting on this exchange, Erich Fromm remarked that ‘if such a tortuous and submissive letter had been written by a personality of less stature than Balint or else to avoid serious consequences relating to life or liberty in a dictatorial system, that would be understandable. But . . . this only shows the intensity of the pressure that forbids any criticism, if not extremely mild, from a member of the organisation’ (Fromm 1970, 22).

  257. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  258. Quoted in Falzeder (1998), 133.

  259. The Observer (Sydney), 9 January 1960.

  260. Jones (1955), 421.

  261. See Freud and Ferenczi (2000). Also see the letter from Jones to Anna Freud of 29 July 1952: ‘Balint makes life as complicated as he can. Now he has discovered a promise to Gisella Fer. [Gizella Ferenczi, ex-Pálos] that no one is to use the allusions to her for 50 years (as if I wanted to, or as if I didn’t know all about their problems!)’ (Anna Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC).

  262. See Young-Bruehl (1989), ch. 3; Mahony (1992a).

  263. On Tausk, see Roazen (1969); on Silberer, see Roazen (1975).

  264. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  265. Storfer’s doubts concerning the Diary’s authenticity were mentioned by Anna Freud in a Rundbrief of 17 February 1927 (Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society).

  266. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. In fact, the Diary’s inauthenticity was definitively established by Josef Krug in 1926, based on anachronisms and chronological contradictions. The following year, the Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag printed an advertisement in the newsletter of German bookstores with the aim of retrieving all the copies of the work that were still for sale (about this, see Israëls 2006, 139–43). It is difficult to believe that Jones hadn’t been aware of this.

  267. Jones (1957), 49.

  268. In fact, The Origins of Psychoanalysis only appeared in 1954.

  269. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  270. Ernest Jones to James Strachey, 3 November 1953, Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  271. Inscription written by Kurt Eissler on an envelope he deposited in the Library of Congress and which contained newspaper articles relating to the trial of Freud’s uncle for trafficking counterfeit coins: ‘Top secret microfilm of newspaper article. – Not to be opened, except by Dr K. R. Eissler.’ The contents of the present section reproduce elements developed more fully in Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani (2002). The first to reconstruct and document the history of the Freud archives and its systematic obstruction of research was Peter Swales, in his landmark presentation, ‘Freud and the unconscionable: the obstruction of Freud studies, 1946–2113’ (Swales 1991).

  272. Bettelheim (1957), 418.

  273. Jones Papers, Archives of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

  274. Ibid.

  275. Anna Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  276. Ibid.

  277. Siegfried Bernfeld to Kurt Eissler, 4 January 1951, Anna Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  278. The philosopher Richard Avenarius was, along with Ernst Mach, one of the originators of empirico-criticism (empirical criticism).

  279. Anna Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  280. Ibid.

  281. Ibid.

  282. Ibid.

  283. Ibid.

  284. Ibid.

  285. Ibid.

  286. For an example of a particularly lucrative appraisal, see Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani (2002), 294.

  287. 1994 Interview; the situation has changed in part since Eissler’s death in 1999.

  288. Interview with Paul Roazen, Toronto, 20 November 1994.

  289. ‘Agreement between The Library of Congress and The Sigmund Freud Archives, Inc.’, 5 July 1951. We thank the Library of Congress for allowing us to consult this internal document pursuant to article 1917–3 of the Library of Congress Regulations.

  290. Swales (1991). Swales was the first, in this debate, to reconstruct the history of the creation of the Freud Archives.

  291. Kurt R. Eissler, transcript of an interview with E. A. Bennet, July 1972, Sigmund Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; our emphasis. These two letters, for which Bennet had not demanded any restrictions on access, were only made available to researchers in the year 2000.

  292. Interview with Marvin W. Kranz, Manuscript Historian, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 15 June 2000.

  293. ‘Erstes Treffen mit Dr. P. nach der Vorbesprechung 10 A. M. im Hotel’, Sigmund Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; could not be photocopied until 2010.

  294. Pfister Archives, Zentralbibliothek, Zurich.

  295. Typewritten interview, 1, Sigmund Freud Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; cannot be photocopied until 2013.

  296. Marie Bonaparte Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  297. Eissler interviewed her three times – twice in 1952 and once in 1953. The respective derestriction dates are 2010, 2017 and 2057.

  298. Pointed out by Swales (1991).

  299. Interview with Frank J. Sulloway, Cambridge, MA, 19 November 1994.

  300. Interview with Paul Roazen, Toronto, 20 November 1994. Roazen is the first researcher to have openly criticised the restrictions imposed by the Freud Archives.

  301. Roazen (1990), 96.

  302. Private correspondence.

  303. Declaration by James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, during the bicentennial celebration of the Library of Congress, 24 April 2000.

  304. See for example Malcolm’s anecdotal description (1984).

  CODA: WHAT WAS PSYCHOANALYSIS?

  1. Wittenberger and Teugel (1999), 118. Given the constantly moving goalposts, Jones himself was not always clear on this point – on 8 December 1915, he wrote to Freud: ‘In my article on repression and memory . . . I criticised Jung for a statement which I now find in your recent article on repression. This is very sad, isn’t it?’ (Freud and Jones 1993, 314).

  2. Burnham (1967), 214.

  3. Hacking (1998).

  4. Lévi-Strauss (1973), xliv–l.

  5. Lawrence (1986 [1923]), 201.

  6. Cioffi (2005), 316–17.

  7. See Borch-Jacobsen (2009), ch. 9.

  8. Wallerstein (1995), 510.

  9. Wallerstein (1988), 17.

  10. See Crews (1995; 1998) and Skues (1998).

  11. See Borch-Jacobsen, ‘Foreword’, in Dufresne (2000).

  12. For an anthropological study of (now rapidly declining) psychoanalytic institutes in the USA, see Kirschner (2000).

  Bibliography

  Abraham, Hilda (1976), Karl Abraham. Sein Leben für die Psychoanalyse, Munich, Kindler.

  Abraham, Karl (1954 [1919]), ‘A particular form of neurotic resistance against the psycho-analytic method’, in Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, with an introductory essay by Ernest Jones, trans. Douglas Bryan and Alix Strachey, New York, Basic Books, 303–11.

  Adam, Émile (1923), Le freudisme. Étude historique et critique de méthodologie psychothérapique, Colmar, Alsatia.

  Adams, Leslie (1954), ‘Sigmund Freud’s correct birthdate: misunderstanding and solution’, Psychoanalytic Review, 41, 359–62.

  Adler, Alfred (1972 [1912]), Über den nervösen Charakter, Frankfurt, Fischer.

  Alexander, Franz and Selesnick, Sheldon T. (1965), ‘Freud–Bleuler correspondence’, Archives of General Psychiatry, 12, 1–9.

  Alt, Konrad (1908) in Gerard van Weyenburg (ed.), Comp
tes rendus du Congrès international de psychiatrie et de neurologie, Amsterdam, G. H. De Bussy, 293.

  Andersson, Ola (1962), Studies in the Prehistory of Psychoanalysis. The Etiology of Psychoneuroses and Some Related Themes in Sigmund Freud’s Scientific Writings and Lectures, 1888–1896, Stockholm, Svenska Bokförlaget.