Family constellation: Strange

1

• Family constellation Strange
• Jacob Freud close to 50 when married Amalia who
  was said to be very good looking and approached
  20 at the time.
• Jacob Freud a wool merchant with two sons in
  their 20s when Freud was born
• Freuds relations with his father- not close.
  Mixed feelings towards his father (the story
  about the anti-Semitic incident and Freuds
  shame)
• Freuds relations with his mother- He was the
  center of the family. The story with his sisters
  piano.
• He who has his mothers love will lack nothing in
  life.

2

• In school An outstanding student and a social
  leader (led his class in some type of high
  school rebellion)
• In 1873 started medical studies which he finished
  at 1879 and joined the Austrian army for about 1
  year.
• In his discharge papers he is described as very
  skillful in his profession, honest, firm
  character, cheerful, orderly and reliable,
  friendly, very distant and modest, pleasant
  manners.
• An image of a conforming, hard working young man.

3

• Begins his work in a medical research laboratory.
  His aspiration to become a medical researcher.
  Worked with some of the more prominent people of
  the time (Brucke, Maynert).
• Around that time It became clear to him that he
  shall not be able to get an academic position at
  the lab.
• Although Jones attributes this to Anti-Semitism,
  we cant be sure.
• Decides to make his living as a physician

4
1885-1896 Before Psychoanalysis

• Mid 1880s
• The cocaine episode
• Received a scholarship to travel to Paris to work
  with Charcot.
• Upon returning (1886) presents a paper on Male
  Hysteria which is received rather coldly. This
  event haunts him and is a model for his belief
  that people object to his ideas because they are
  so creative and novel which forces him to
  constantly fight his way up. But
• 1886- Marries Martha Bernays
• 1986-1896 Years of establishing himself as a
  physician
• At about the same time leaves Maynert laboratory
• His work in Jacob Breuer Anna O
• Breuer main contributor. Noticed that he can
  overcome her hysterical paralysis also through
  talking and catharsis and not only hypnosis. The
  beginning of Psychotherapy. The talking cure ,
  the chimney sweeping
• Freud soon later destroys his relations with
  Breuer. Severs his relations with figures of
  authority (Maynert, Breuer).
• His relations with Wilhelm Fliess. The physician
  from Berlin. In their correspondence one finds
  much of the psychoanalytic ideas.

5
1896-1914- Formulating a theory and creating a
science

• 1896- Jacob Freud dies
• His shift from the real trauma basis of
  neurosis to the fantasy theory in 1897, after
  his father passed away, in letters to Fliess.
• The importance of this shift. (Without the
  fantasy theory there is no oedipus complex and
  without this there is no Freudian
  psychoanalysis. )
• 1889- travels to meet Bernheim and Liebault and
  is very impressed by what he sees there as
  therapeutic influence of interpersonal influence
  of the doctor on the patient which is termed as
  psychotherapy.
• 1899/1900 - after years of self-analysis The
  interpretation of dreams. Freud is 44 and much
  of his theory is in place, but changing all the
  time.
• 1902- Wed. night meetings in 15 Bergstrasse. -
  Alfred Adler joins
• 1904 Psychopathology and Everyday Life
  Determinism.
• 1907- Jung and Binswegner join the group. (both
  are Christians.)
• 1909- The trip to Clark U- USA
• 1911- Adler leaves and creates Individual
  Psychology
• 1913- Jung leaves and creates his own Analytic
  Psychology

6
1918-1939 WW I, Tanathos, and new interests

• Eros and libido are not alone, Tanathos and the
  death instinct must also be there.
• 1923 Three personal blows Sophie (his daughter)
  and Heinrl (beloved grandson die) he is diagnosed
  with cancer
• 1925- 1935 From Clinical to Social Civilization
  and its discontents, Group psychology and the
  analysis of the ego, the future of illusion,
  etc.,
• 1938 The Anschllus, flees to London
• 1939- Moses and Monotheism, Freud dies.

7
The three Sigmund Frueds

• 1880-1900 The inventor- Ambitious, jumps from
  one area to the other, tries to fulfill
  expectations, builds and leaves relations with
  mentors. Puts his stamp on the world
  Psychoanalysis.
• 1900-1920 The organizer- The wed. night
  meetings, a journal, scientific conferences,
  followers. Demands strict conformity.When Adler
  (1911) reads a paper at the Wed. night meeting
  that the master views as contradictory to his
  views- He makes Adler leave.
• Not a very empathic individual The case of Dora
  (her sick father became the lover of Mrs. K, Mr.
  K tried to seduce 15 yr. old Dora Dora got
  scared. But Freud She must have been attracted
  to the handsome Mr. K but could not admit it and
  hence her problems. From this transference-
  Her attraction to Mr. K transferred to her
  therapist
• No word about sexual abuse, etc., Complete
  blaming the victim
• 1920-1939 The old sage award of his human
  limitations.

8

• At this time he looks with satisfaction at what
  he has built. He truly built a school in
  psychology. Not only that He transformed
  culture.
• In the late 20s a French journalist writes of
  him
• We see an extremely accentuated Jewish type. The
  air of an old Rabbi just arrived from Palestine.
  When he speaks of his doctrine and his disciples
  he so with a mixture of pride and detachment but
  it is pride that dominates
• About 20 years after the Dora story
• Getz, the young poet, comes to see him about his
  problems. At the end of the meeting, Freud gives
  him an envelope with money and says
• This is a small honorarium for the pleasure that
  you gave me with your verses and the story of
  your life.

9
Freud Judaism and Zionism

• Grew up in a Jewish home. But His Jacob Amalia
  married in a Reform ceremony. He was circumcised
  according to tradition.
• His Philipson bible with a Hebrew dedication by
  his father to Shlomo-Sigismund (at the age of
  35).
• The family did not celebrate the holidays but
  Passover was celebrated at his parents home.
• In his own family with Martha
• Martha a grandaughter of Isaac Bernays
• Freud writes her during their engagement
  something of the core of the essence of this
  life-affirming judaism will not be asent from our
  home
• A conflict between his Jewish roots and identity
  and his Viennese Bourgeois.
• Also Freud is a militant atheist there is no
  court of appear higher than reason (in Future
  of Illusion- Religion A collective Neurosis)

10

• At that time something asks him what if he feels
  Jewish. He answers with YES. Then he is asked
  what it is for him to which he says
• Not very much but probably the main thing.
• He attributed his ability to withstand attacks to
  his Jewish identity.
• In 1897 he joins Bnai Brith. In 1931 at his 75th
  birthday he says
• It seems quite non sensible to deny the major
  part of my identity Me being a Jew.
• What bound me to Judaism was not faith, not even
  national pride but many dark emotional powers
  all the more powerful the less they could be
  expressed in words
• At about the same time he writes to a friend
  What am I? I am a Jew from Moravia whose parents
  come for Austrian Galicia.
• In 1938 he angers the Jewish community with Moses
  and Monotheism in which he claims that (a) Moses
  was an Egyptian prince, who (b) was killed by the
  Hebrews. (ties in with his theorizing on
  patricide).
• His fascination with Moses, Italy and Egypt. The
  objects in his study.

11

• What did he mean by being and not being a Jew?
• Judaism as a Religion, National Identity and
  Psychological Identity.
• Not a Jew in the Religious sense (religion A
  collective neurosis)
• A national-cultural identity as a Jew, but
  critical and suspicious
• Psychological Identity YES. (the psychological
  characteristics that are attributable to group
  membership- the dark emotional forces).
• He tells Karl Abraham (1910) when asking him to
  accept Jungs position as a successor please be
  patient and do not forget that it is really
  easier for you than it is for Jung to follow my
  ideasfor you are closer to my intellectual
  constitution because of racial kinship

12

• What does this include?
• Ability to be a persecuted minority and withstand
  criticism.
• As a Jew I was prepared to join the opposition
  and to do without the agreement of the compact
  majority.
• Says to Max Graf (father of little Hans) who
  asked him whether to raise Hans as a Jew. Because
  if he did not you would deprive him of the
  energy that can not be replaced by anything
  else.
• Another dimension The emphasis on the abstract
  (the prohibition of the concrete- pictures and
  statues-). The need to intellectualize rather
  than see and sense.
• In 1938, shortly before death, Anna Freud reads
  to an audience her fathers words We Jews have
  always known to respect spiritual values. We
  preserved our unity through ideas
• Freud and Anti-Semitism
• Exposed at an early age (Jacobs story when Freud
  was 10)
• At his late age he writes to a friend
  basically all are anti-semites. They are
  everywhere. Frequently anti-semitism is latent
  and hidden, but it is everywhere.

13

• Psychoanalysis did indeed suffer from being
  labeled a Jewish science.
• In 1921 Nolles writes in favor of Psychoanalysis
  but notes that it has to rid itself of its Jewish
  attitudes and that it was developed with typical
  Jewish patients who are never satisfied.
• In 1921 McDougal writes that Psychoanalysis was
  developed by a Jew who studied Jewish patients
  and it seems to appeal strongly to Jews for me
  and those like me this theory looks bizzare and
  fantastic and may be valid only for the Jewish
  race.
• The clash between what the Nazis saw as their
  virile ideology and weak feminine
  psychoanalysis.

14

• He writes about Herzl as the champion of our
  rights
• In his letter to Albert Einstein he writes
• I am proud in our university in Jerusalem, and
  our flourishing settlements, but Zionism is an
  irrational movement and the Christian and the
  Muslim world will never permit their holy places
  to be given to the Jews
• He writes that he is sorry about the
  unrealistic fanaticism of our brothers in
  Palestine which is awakening the suspicions of
  the Arabs
• He continues in the same spirit I can master
  no sympathy for the piety that makes a national
  symbol of a wall of Herod, and for its sake
  challenges the feelings of the local population
• His link with Zionsim was through his 2 sons who
  belonged to Kadima and one of them was the editor
  of the bulletin of Kadima. He did endorse,
  neither expressed dissatisfaction with this
  activity.
• He then calls himself I am an infidel Jew