Freud - Complete Works (746 page)

   A similar objection applies to
Ernest Jones’s view (1927) that the phallic phase in girls is
a secondary, protective reaction rather than a genuine
developmental stage. This does not correspond either to the dynamic
or the chronological position of things.

4608

DR. REIK AND THE PROBLEM OF
QUACKERY

A LETTER TO THE
NEUE FREIE PRESSE

(1926)

Dear Sir,

   In an article in your issue of
July 15 dealing with the case of my pupil, Dr. Theodor Reik, or,
more precisely, in a section of it headed ‘Information from
Psycho-Analytic Circles’, there is a passage on which I
should like to make a few remarks by way of correction.

   The passage runs: ‘. . .
during the last few years he has become convinced that Dr. Reik,
who has gained a wide reputation from his philosophical and
psychological writings, possesses a far greater gift for
psycho-analysis than the physicians attached to the Freudian
school; and he has entrusted the most difficult cases only to him
and to his daughter Anna, who has proved quite specially adept in
the difficult technique of psycho-analysis.’

   Dr. Reik himself would, I think,
be the first to reject any such account of the basis of our
relations. It is true, however, that I have availed myself of his
skill in particularly difficult cases, but this has only been where
the symptoms lay in a sphere far removed from the physical one. And
I have never failed to inform a patient that he is not a physician
but a psychologist.

   My daughter Anna has devoted
herself to the pedagogic analysis of children and adolescents. I
have never yet referred to her a case of severe neurotic illness in
an adult. Incidentally the only case with moderately severe
symptoms verging on the psychiatric which she has hitherto treated
repaid the physician who referred it to her by its complete
success.

   I take the opportunity of
informing you that I have just sent to press a small work on
The
Question of Lay Analysis
. In it I have tried to show what a
psycho-analysis is and what demands it makes on the analyst. I have
considered the far from simple relations between psycho-analysis
and medicine, and have drawn the conclusion that any mechanical
application to trained analysts of the section against quackery is
open to grave doubts.

   Since I have given up my Vienna
practice and have cut down my activity to the treatment of a very
few foreigners, I trust that this announcement will not involve me
too in a prosecution for unprofessional advertisement.

Yours &c.,

Professor Freud

4609

DR. ERNEST JONES

(ON HIS 50th BIRTHDAY)

(1929)

The first piece of work that it fell to
psycho-analysis to perform was the discovery of the instincts that
are common to all men living to-day - and not only to those living
to-day but to those of ancient and of prehistoric times. It called
for no great effort, therefore, for psycho-analysis to ignore the
differences that arise among the inhabitants of the earth owing to
the multiplicity of races, languages and countries. From the start
it was
international
, and it is well known that its
followers overcame the dividing effects of the Great War sooner
than any others.

   Among the men who met at Salzburg
in the spring of 1908 for the first psycho-analytical congress, a
young English physician was prominent, who delivered a short paper
on ‘Rationalization in Everyday Life’. The contents of
this first-fruit hold good to this day: our young science was
enriched by an important concept and an indispensable term.

   From that time on Ernest Jones
has never rested. First in his post as a professor in Toronto, then
as a physician in London, as the founder and teacher of a Branch
Society, as director of a Press, as editor of a Journal, and as
head of a Training Institute, he has worked tirelessly for
psycho-analysis, making its current findings generally known by
means of lectures, defending it against the attacks and
misunderstandings of its opponents by means of brilliant, severe
but fair criticisms, maintaining its difficult position in England
against the demands of the ‘profession’ with tact and
moderation, and, alongside of all these externally directed
activities, accomplishing, in loyal co-operation with the
development of psycho-analysis on the Continent, the scientific
achievement to which, among other works, his
Papers on
Psycho-Analysis
and
Essays in Applied Psycho-Analysis
bear witness. Now, in the prime of life, he is not only
indisputably the leading figure among English-speaking analysts,
but is also recognized as one of the foremost representatives of
psycho-analysis as a whole - a mainstay for his friends and, as
much as ever, a hope for the future of our science.

   Now that the Director of this
journal has broken the silence to which he is condemned - or to
which he has a right - owing to his age, in order to greet his
friend, he may be permitted to conclude - not with a wish, for we
do not believe in the omnipotence of thoughts - but with the
admission that he cannot think of Ernest Jones, even after his
fiftieth birthday, as other than before: zealous and energetic,
combative and devoted to the cause.

4610

THE EXPERT OPINION IN THE HALSMANN CASE

(1931)

The Oedipus complex, as far as we know, is
present in childhood in all human beings, undergoes great
alterations during the years of development and in many individuals
is found in varying degrees of strength even at a mature age. Its
essential characteristics, its universality, its content and its
fate were recognized, long before the days of psycho-analysis, by
that acute thinker Diderot, as is shown by a passage in his famous
dialogue,
Le neveu de Rameua
: ‘Si le petit sauvage
était abandonne à lui-même, qu’il
conservât tout son imbécillité, et qu’il
réunit au peu de raison de l’enfant au berceau la
violence des passions de l’homme de trente ans, il tordrait
le cou à son pere, et coucherait avec sa
mère.’

   If it had been objectively
demonstrated that Philipp Halsmann murdered his father, there would
at all events be some grounds for introducing the Oedipus complex
to provide a motive for an otherwise unexplained deed. Since no
such proof has been adduced, mention of the Oedipus complex has a
misleading effect; it is at the least idle. Such disagreements as
have been uncovered by the investigation in the Halsmann family
between the father and son are altogether inadequate to provide a
foundation for assuming in the son a bad relationship towards his
father. Even if it were otherwise, we should be obliged to say that
it is a far cry from there to the causation of such a deed.
Precisely because it is always present, the Oedipus complex is not
suited to provide a decision on the question of guilt. The
situation envisaged in a well-known anecdote might easily be
brought about. There was a burglary. A man who had a jemmy in his
possession was found guilty of the crime. After the verdict had
been given and he had been asked if he had anything to say, he
begged to be sentenced for adultery at the same time - since he was
carrying the tool for that on him as well.

   In Dostoevsky’s great
novel,
The Brothers Karamazov
, the Oedipus situation stands
at the focal point of interest. Old Karamazov has made himself
detested by his sons through heartless oppression; in the eyes of
one of them he is, in addition, a powerful rival for the woman he
desires. This son, Dmitri, makes no secret of his intention to
avenge himself on his father by force. It is therefore natural that
after his father has been murdered and robbed he should be accused
as his murderer and, despite all protestations of his innocence,
condemned. And yet Dmitri is innocent; another of the brothers has
done the deed. A dictum that has become famous occurs during the
trial scene in this novel: ‘Psychology is a knife that cuts
both ways.’

The Expert Opinion In The Halsmann Case

4611

   The Opinion of the Innsbruck
Faculty of Medicine seems inclined to attribute an
‘effective’ Oedipus complex to Philipp Halsmann, but
refrains from defining the measure of this effectiveness, since
under the pressure of the accusation the necessary conditions for
‘an unreserved disclosure’ on Philipp Halsmann’s
part were not fulfilled. When the Faculty go on to refuse even
‘on the supposition of the accused being guilty to look for
the root of the deed in an Oedipus complex’, they are
carrying their denial too far without any necessity.

   In the same Opinion, we come up
against a contradiction which is by no means without significance.
The possible influence of emotional shock on the disturbance of
memory with regard to impressions before and during the critical
time is minimized to the extreme, in my opinion unjustly. The
assumptions of an exceptional state of mind or of mental illness
are decisively rejected, but the explanation of a
‘repression’ having taken place in Philipp Halsmann
after the deed is readily allowed. I must say, however, that a
repression of this kind, occurring out of the blue in an adult who
gives no indication of a severe neurosis - the repression of an
action which would certainly be more important than any debatable
details of distance and the passage of time and which takes place
in a normal state or one altered only by physical fatigue - would
be a rarity of the first order.

4612

INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY NUMBER OF

THE MEDICAL REVIEW OF REVIEWS

(1930)

Dr. Feigenbaum has asked me to write a few
words for the Review of which he is in charge, and I take the
opportunity of wishing the best success to his undertaking.

   I often hear that psycho-analysis
is very popular in the United States and that it does not come up
against the same stubborn resistance there as it does in Europe. My
satisfaction over this is, however, clouded by several
circumstances. It seems to me that the popularity of the name of
psycho-analysis in America signifies neither a friendly attitude to
the thing itself nor any specially wide or deep knowledge of it. As
evidence of the former fact I may point out that, although
financial support is to be had easily and in plenty for every kind
of scientific and pseudo-scientific enterprise, we have never
succeeded in obtaining a backing for our psycho-analytic
institutions. Nor is it hard to find evidence for my second
assertion. Although America possesses several excellent analysts
and, in Dr. A. A. Brill, at least one authority, the contributions
to our science from that vast country are exiguous and provide
little that is new. Psychiatrists and neurologists make frequent
use of psycho-analysis as a therapeutic method, but as a rule they
show little interest in its scientific problems and its cultural
significance. Quite particularly often we find in American
physicians and writers a very insufficient familiarity with
psycho-analysis, so that they know only its terms and a few
catch-words - though this does not shake them in the certainty of
their judgement. And these same men lump psycho-analysis with other
systems of thought, which may have developed out of it but are
incompatible with it to-day. Or they make a hotch-potch out of
psycho-analysis and other elements and quote this procedure as
evidence of their
broad-mindedness
, whereas it only proves
their
lack of judgement
.

   Many of these evils which I have
mentioned with regret no doubt arise from the fact that there is a
general tendency in America to shorten study and preparation and to
proceed as fast as possible to practical application. There is a
preference, too, for studying a subject like psycho-analysis not
from the original sources but from second-hand and often inferior
accounts. Thoroughness is bound to suffer from this.

   It is to be hoped that works of
the kind that Dr. Feigenbaum intends to publish in his Review will
be a powerful encouragement to the interest in psycho-analysis in
America.

4613

INTRODUCTION TO EDOARDO
WEISS’S
ELEMENTS OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

(1931)

The author of these lectures, my friend and
pupil Dr. Edoardo Weiss, has expressed a wish that I should send
his work on its way with a few words of recommendation. In doing so
I am fully aware that such a recommendation is superfluous. The
work speaks for itself. All who know how to appreciate the
seriousness of a scientific endeavour, how to value the honesty of
an investigator who does not seek to belittle or deny the
difficulties, and how to take pleasure in the skill of a teacher
who brings light into darkness and order into chaos by his
exposition, must form a high estimate of this book and share my
hope that it will awaken among cultivated and learned circles in
Italy a lasting interest in the young science of
psycho-analysis.

Sigm. Freud

4614

PREFACE TO
TEN YEARS OF THE
BERLIN PSYCHO-ANALYTIC INSTITUTE

(1930)

The following pages describe the founding and
achievements of the Berlin Psycho-Analytic Institute, to which are
allotted three important functions within the psycho-analytic
movement. First, it endeavours to make our therapy accessible to
the great multitude who suffer under their neuroses no less than
the wealthy, but who are not in a position to meet the cost of
their treatment. Secondly, it seeks to provide a centre at which
analysis can be taught theoretically and at which the experience of
older analysts can be handed on to pupils who are anxious to learn.
And lastly, it aims at perfecting our knowledge of neurotic
illnesses and our therapeutic technique by applying them and
testing them under fresh conditions.

   An Institute of this kind was
indispensable; but we should have waited in vain for assistance
from the State or interest from the University in its foundation.
Here the energy and self-sacrifice of an individual analyst took
the initiative. Ten years ago, Dr. Max Eitingon, now President of
the International Psycho-Analytical Association, created an
Institute such as this from his own resources, and has since then
maintained and directed it by his own efforts. This Report on the
first decade of the Berlin Institute is a tribute to its creator
and director - an attempt to render him public thanks. Everyone
who, in whatever sense, has a share in psycho-analysis will unite
in thus thanking him.