Saturday, January 17, 2009

DGB Philosophy-Psychology vs. Freud, Masson and Different Derrivatives of Psychoanalysis

Everything is subject to change.

I learned that in Gestalt Therapy, and also from the ancient philosophy of Heraclitus ('You can't step into the same river twice.'). Before both of these even, from General Semantics where everything is 'process', not 'structure', and nouns are often changed to verbs to make the situation at hand more immediate, dynamic, and totally relevant to context as opposed to having 'universal meaning'.

All of these ideas are very appropro in many, if not all, different types of situations.

...................................................................................

1. appropo
Appropriate

Slight modification in spelling and definition of "apropos"

eg. Her choice of attire is appropo given the casual atmosphere of the restaurant.


................................................................................

However, at times, the cliche/truism -- 'The more things change, the more things stay the same' -- is also appropro.

This brings us to our third appropo assertion/truism of the morning:

Context is everything. (I learned that from General Semantics, specifically, S.I. Hayakawa, 'Language in Thought and Action'.)

I'm a Pisces -- born March 3rd, 1955 -- if my memory serves me correctly, 52 years to the day that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung met for the first time on a Sunday morning and talked non-stop for about 14 hours.

A quick check upstairs in my private library corrects my memory. It was Sunday March 3rd, 1907 that Freud and Jung met for the first time and about 13 hours that they talked non-stop, according to the author, Duane Schultz, Ph.D, of the fabulous book, Intimate Friends, Dangerous Rivals: The Turbulent Relationship Between Freud and Jung.

I love writers who can weave human history and biography with passion and human drama -- the aliveness, trials and tribulations, and contact of everyday human existence.

I hate and disdain the 'hoops' of university academia, brutally dry academia -- where without water, without blood, without air, without proper cognitive-emotional nutrition and sustenance -- and like leaches and vampires, they suck all the students' blood out of their arteries, to become walking dead people, living-dying projective-identifications of the universities themselves.

Not to mention poor. Either born to rich parents or $30,000 in debt or more -- before they hit the age of 25 or 30. Before they step into their first permanent job and/or career. I can't even speculate the number of bankruptcies in our post-college or university grads upon just leaving school. It has to be shockingly high -- at least until the goverment(s) has/have moved to not allow student loans to be subject to bankruptcy laws. I don't have the facts nor the time to fully confront this issue, but the issue is there for some other investigative reporter to fully grab hold of, if this has not been done already. I know that there have been some editorial articles on this subject matter but not enough to make a signficant impact on the full breadth and depth of the problem -- nor possible solution to lower the cost of post-secondary education.

Call this food for another DGB essay, someday somewhere down the DGB priority list. I love what they did in the Scottish Enlightenment -- opened the university doors to the public, charged them a nominal lecture fee, and reaped the economic and motivational-spiritual benefits as Scotland became one of the best educated countries in the world -- especially per capita, and some of the best world inventors, philosophers, politicians, economists, scientists, doctors...did more than their part in helping to revolutionize the modern Industrial revolution. I will come back with two sources in a few minutes. We will take up this line of thought at different time.

Freud and Psychoanalysis.

Memories of the 1980s and early 1990s.

1. Buying all 24 volumes of James Strachey's Standard Edition of The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud -- at a book store on Harbord Street by The University of Toronto, and carrying the full box home on my shoulders, on the Yonge St. subway, to my apartment in mid-Toronto at Mt. Pleasant and Davisville. I think the full set cost me about $700. I don't know what the set is worth today.

2. Buying a couple of old, used, beaten up books from a used book store, again on Harbord St, by St. George St. in the heartland of University of Toronto country. One book -- The Third Volume, First Edition, of Ernest Jones' biography of Freud -- was published by Ernest Jones, and manufactured in the U.S., 1957. The inscription on one of the first inside pages says, 'Nancy, April 14th, 1958'. I would have just turned 3 yrs. old at the time of the inscription, and living in either London, Ontario or Vancouver, B.C. (I will have to consult my parents on the specifics.)

3. The second book I bought that same day as the Ernest Jones book, was an old copy of Freud's 1905 published book -- Jokes and Their Relation to The Unconscious. This particular edition was translated and edited by James Strachey in 1960 and published that same year.

4. I remember being extremely excited at having purchased these last two books (as well of course as having purchased the complete Freud-Strachey, Standard 24 Volume Edition) and again carrying the books home on the same subway route up to Yonge and Davisville, walking to Mt. Pleasant and Davisville. Here the memory gets a little cloudy -- one or two memories probably colliding and colluding with each other. Because my next visual image is of dropping these two books -- or at least the 'Jokes' book I know for sure -- off the subway platform at Yonge and Davisville. I remember doing a quick (seconds, minutes?) calculation on how much time I had til the next subway came along. I think I asked the man standing next to me if he would help pull me back up again if I jumped off the subway platform to retrieve the two books. He said 'yes', down I went, I retrieved the books and placed them back on the platform floor, and my friend of the moment helped me back up. (I'm certainly glad he was a Good Samaratan and didn't lie to me. I hadn't calculated an alternative, back-up plan.)

5. One last book purchase from a bookstore on Queen St. East, around Jarvis or Sherbourne. I'm not sure whether it was Jeffrey Masson's book, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory' (1984, 1985, 1992); or 'Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst' which I can't find in my archives at the moment. I think it was 'The Assault on Truth' which would probably place the year as being 1992. Masson's books and ideas have certainly had a strong influence on my thinking -- although I haven't 'swallowed them whole'. In Hegel's Hotel we will merge Freudian thinking both before, during and after the 'Seduction Theory' years of around 1895.

I believe that Masson deserves a strong, respected place in the history of Psychoanalysis -- a part of a signficant Hegelian Freud-Masson revolution and evolution of Psychoanalysis which has been accepted and integrated by DGB Philosophy-Psychology -- or at least will be -- while Masson's contribution to the potential revolution and evolution of Psychoanalysis probably remains largely suppressed, ignored, and marginalized, although partly or fully supported in some academic, theoretical and therapeutic fronts -- largely those of non-psychoanalytic perspective, such as with those therapists who strongly support Freud's Traumacy, Seduction, and Childhood Sexual Assault Theory, and Masson's 're-awakening' of these buried and marginalized early Freudian theories and therapies (before 1897 or 1900, take your pick).

...........................................................................

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (born March 28, 1941 as Jeffrey Lloyd Masson in Chicago, Illinois) is an American author, residing in New Zealand, known for his revisionist conclusions about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. In his book The Assault on Truth, Masson argued that Freud may have abandoned his seduction theory because he feared that granting the truth of his female patients' claims that they had been sexually abused would hinder the acceptance of his psychoanalytic methods. He has also written about animals and animal rights.

Contents [hide]
1 Life and career
2 Critique of Freud
3 Recent work
4 Personal life
5 Writings by Masson
5.1 Reviews of his books
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links



[edit] Life and career
Masson is the son of Jacques Moussaieff, a French Mizrahi Sephardic Jew of Bukharian ancestry, and Diana (Dina) Zeiger from a Ashkenazi strict Orthodox Jewish family. Both parents were followers of the British mystic Paul Brunton. During the 1940s and 1950s, Brunton often lived with them, eventually designating Jeffrey as his heir apparent. In 1956, Diana and Jacques Masson moved to Uruguay because Brunton believed that a third world war was imminent. Jeffrey and and his sister Linda followed in 1959.

At Brunton's urging, Masson went to Harvard University to study Sanskrit. While at Harvard, Masson became disillusioned with Brunton. Brunton and his influence and the Masson family form the subject of Masson's autobiographical book My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion. Harvard University granted Masson a B.A. in 1964 and a Ph.D. with Honors in 1970. His degrees were in Sanskrit and Indian Studies. While undertaking his Ph.D., Masson also studied, supported by fellowships, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the University of Calcutta, and the University of Poona.

He taught Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of Toronto, 1969-80, reaching the rank of Professor. He has also held short term appointments at Brown University, the University of California, and the University of Michigan. From 1981 to 1992, he was a Research Associate, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, at the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.


[edit] Critique of Freud
In 1970, Masson began studying to become a psychoanalyst at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, completing a full clinical training course in 1978. During this time, he befriended the psychoanalyst Kurt Eissler and became acquainted with Sigmund Freud's daughter Anna Freud. Eissler designated Masson to succeed him as Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives after his and Anna Freud's death. Masson learned German and studied the history of psychoanalysis. In 1980 Masson was appointed Projects Director of the Freud Archives, with full access to Freud's correspondence and other unpublished papers. While perusing this material, Masson concluded that Freud might have rejected his so-called seduction theory in order to advance the cause of psychoanalysis and to maintain his own place within the psychoanalytic inner circle. [1] Masson's actions, along with those of Kurt Eissler and Peter Swales, form the subject of In the Freud Archives, an article in the New Yorker by Janet Malcolm, which she later expanded into a book.

In 1981, Masson's controversial conclusions were discussed in a series of New York Times articles by Ralph Blumenthal, to the dismay of the psychoanalytic establishment. Masson was subsequently dismissed from his position as project director of the Freud Archives. and stripped of his membership in psychoanalytic professional societies. Masson was defended by Alice Miller [2] and Muriel Gardiner ("While striving not to take sides," Gardiner said, "I consider him a good and energetic worker and a worthwhile scholar.") [3].

Masson later wrote several books critical of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychiatry, including The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. In the introduction to The Assault on Truth, Masson admitted that, "My pessimistic conclusions may possibly be wrong. The documents may in fact allow a very different reading." [4] Janet Malcolm interviewed Masson at length when writing her long New Yorker article on this controversy. Masson sued the New Yorker for defamation, claiming that Malcolm had misquoted him. The ensuing trial drew considerable attention.[5]The decade-long, $US10 million lawsuit came to a close when the court ruled in the New Yorker 's favor.[6]

In 1985, Masson edited and translated the complete correspondence of Freud with Wilhelm Fliess after having convinced Anna Freud to make all of it available. He also looked up the original places and documents in La Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris,[7] where Freud had studied with Charcot. Masson has written that people used to be very interested in himself but as far as the cause was concerned, there is silence from the scientific community. [8]


[edit] Recent work
Since the early 1990s, Masson has written a number of books on the emotional life of animals, one of which, When Elephants Weep, has been translated into 20 languages. He has explained this radical change in the subject of his writings as follows:

“ "I'd written a whole series of books about psychiatry, and nobody bought them. Nobody liked them. Nobody. Psychiatrists hated them, and they were much too abstruse for the general public. It was very hard to make a living, and I thought, 'As long as I'm not making a living, I may as well write about something I really love: animals.'"[9] ”

Masson also wrote a book about his new home country New Zealand, including an interview with Sir Edmund Hillary. [10] Among other things, Masson and Hillary talk about Alexandra David-Neel and the story of her Tulpa, both of them having read her books Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Initiation and Initiates in Tibet and My Journey to Lhasa. Masson says that he met her in 1957 when he was 16, at her country house at Digne in the south of France.


[edit] Personal life
Masson is married to Leila Masson, a pediatrician. [11] They have two sons, Ilan and Manu. He also has a daughter, Simone, by a previous marriage. [12] Masson was once engaged to University of Michigan feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon, who wrote the preface to his A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality, and Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century.


[edit] Writings by Masson
Bibliography of Masson's writings.

1974. "India and the Unconscious: Erik Erikson on Gandhi," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 55: 519-26. Discussion by T. C. Sinha: 527.
1976. "Perversions-some observations", Israel Ann. Psychiat. rel. Disc., (1976b), 14, 354-61.
1978 (with Terri C. Masson), "Buried Memories on the Acropolis. Freud's Relation to Mysticism and Anti-Semitism", International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 59: 199-208.
1980. The Oceanic Feeling: The Origins of Religious Sentiment in Ancient India. (Table of contents)
1981. The Peacock's Egg: Love Poems from Ancient India, W. S. Merwin and J. Moussaieff Masson, eds. ISBN 0-86547-059-6
1984. The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. Farrar Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10642-8
1984. "Freud and the Seduction Theory A challenge to the foundations of psychoanalysis," The Atlantic Monthly, February 1984.
1985 (editor). The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904. ISBN 0-674-15420-7
1986. A Dark Science: Women, Sexuality and Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 0-374-13501-0, last edition 1988
1988. Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing. ISBN 0-689-11929-1
1990. Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of A Psychoanalyst. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-52368-X, new edition 2003
1993. My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-56778-4
Dogs Never Lie About Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs.
1995. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals.
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals.
The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart. ISBN 0345448820
The Cat Who Came in from the Cold. Wheeler. ISBN 1587249146
The Emperors Embrace Reflections on Animal Families and Fatherhood.
The Evolution of Fatherhood: A Celebration of Animal and Human Families.
Raising the Peaceable Kingdom: What Animals Can Teach Us about the Social Origins of Tolerance and Friendship.
Lost Prince : The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser. [13]
Sex and Yoga: Psychoanalysis and the Indian Religious Experience in VISHNU ON FREUD'S DESK : A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism, T.G. Vaidyanathan & Jeffrey J. Kripal (editors): , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195658353, Paperback (Edition: 2003)[14]
Slipping into Paradise: Why I live in New Zealand. ISBN 0-345-46634-9
2006. Altruistic Armadillos - Zen-Like Zebras: A Menagerie of 100 Favorite Animals. ISBN 978-0-345-47881-8 (0-345-47881-9)
See Masson's praise of the book by Luna Tarlo, the mother of Andrew Cohen.
1995, "A Note on U.G. Krishnamurti."

[edit] Reviews of his books
The Original Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904: By William McGrath.
Against Therapy:
By Jeanne Stubbs.
By Wray Herbert.
Final Analysis: By Michael Sacks.
Breaking Away From the Cult: By Carol Tavris.

[edit] References
^ "Did Freud's Isolation Lead Him to Reverse Theory on Neurosis?" by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, August 25, 1981
^ PSYCHOLOGIE HEUTE, April 1987, P.21, 22: "Im Gegensatz zu manchen Interpreten, die, wie zum Beispiel Marianne Krüll, Marie Balmary oder Jeffrey Masson, Freuds Abkehr von der Wahrheit als Folge seiner Familiengeschichte deuten, sehe ich diesen Schritt als Folge und Ausdruck unserer jahrtausendealten kinderfeindlichen Tradition, in der wir auch heute noch leben. Die Ergebnisse der oben genannten historischen Forscher können trotzdem korrekt sein, aber ich meine, daß es Freud trotz der persönlichen Familiengeschichte möglich gewesen wäre, seiner Entdeckung treu zu bleiben, wenn die Gesellschaft als Ganzes nicht so kinderfeindlich gewesen wäre, wenn schon damals andere, freiere Erziehungsmuster denkbar gewesen wären. Doch zur Zeit Freuds war es noch absolut unmöglich, die Unschuld der Eltern in Frage zu stellen." Alice Miller in interview entitled Wie Psychotherapien das Kind verraten
^ "Freud Archives Research Chief Removed in Dispute Over Yale Talk" by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times November 9, 1981.
^ Masson, Jeffrey (1992). The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory. New York: Harper Perennial. xxxv. ISBN 0-06-097457-5.
^ David Margolick (1994-11-03). "Psychoanalyst Loses Libel Suit Against a New Yorker Reporter", The New York Times.
^ SMH article October 6, 2007
^ History of La Salpêtrière
^ Masson, J., 1990. Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-52368-X.
^ Powells.com Interviews - Jeffrey Masson
^ Masson, J., "A Conversation with a Great Ordinary Kiwi: Sir Edmund Hillary," chpt. 7 in Slipping into Paradise.
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ Review
^ Table of Contents

[edit] Further reading
Kurt R. Eissler, 2001. Freud and the seduction theory: A brief love affair, New York: International Universities Press.
Janet Malcolm, 2002. In the Freud Archives, New York Review of Books. ISBN 159017027X
Sthitaprajna (Perfect Yogi) - Part 2
Luna Tarlo, 1997. The Mother of God. Plover Press. ISBN 9781570270437

[edit] External links
Masson's website.
"Scholars seek the hidden Freud in newly emerging letters." The first of two NYT articles by Ralph Blumenthal, published August 18, 1981.
"Till Press Do Us Part: The Trial of Janet Malcolm and Jeffrey Masson."
"The Lothario who fell for fatherhood."
Transcript of an interview (Jeffrey Masson talking with Kirsten Garrett) first broadcast on The Science Show in 1986, about Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein.
"Walking on the Beach with Jeffrey Masson's Cats," November 14, 2002
"Conversation between Masson and Richard Fidler. Related Audio, December 14, 2007.
About Jeff (with new Photo of Jeffrey and his family)
Photo
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson"
Categories: 1941 births | American writers | Animal rights movement | Bukharan Jews | Jewish American writers | Living people | New Zealand writers | American Jews | People from Chicago, IllinoisViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsLog in / create account Navigation
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Search
Interaction
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact Wikipedia
Donate to Wikipedia
Help
Toolbox
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Printable version
Permanent link
Cite this page

................................................................


I have a few things to say to you Dr. Masson, most of it positive here. (I had a fleeting email contact with you back in the 1990s when you were in New Zealand before you cut off our correspondence -- although you were cordial with me. I wanted to rehash Freud's 'traumacy-seduction theory'. You didn't. That's fine, you have a right to your privacy, and to not wanting to raise the skeletons and ghosts from your dramatic -- and controversial -- Psychoanalytic past.)

However, 'Hegel's Hotel' is my free dialectic-democratic philosophy forum. There is 'freedom of the press' -- as long this principle is not abused in profanity, generalized hate, racism and/or violence.

As best as possible, I try to treat all people respectfully here, even as I either praise and/or 'deconstruct' their philosophical-psychological-political ideas. Quite often both.

Dr. Masson, for what it's worth, I think you are a great writer -- combining your life story, your intellect, and your passion in a very contactful, existential way. You combine your 'existence' with your 'essence'. You are on a short list of my favorite and/or most influential writers:

1. Fritz Perls
2. Nietzsche
3. Masson
4. Janet Malcolm (In The Freud Archives, 1983; Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, 1980,81)
5. Foucault

(I will give a longer list below for those who are interested.)


I think there is a common bond here:

Perls praised Freud -- before he deconstructed him. (Likewise so did Jung, Adler, Fromm, yourself -- Dr Masson, myself, and a whole host of other academics and non-academics who partly loved Freud's ideas, partly hated them -- and were left attempting to sort out and/or integrate the conflictual differences.)

Some flew off in the opposite academic direction as Freud. Others -- probably most others (Adler, Jung, Horney, Klein, Fromm, Perls, myself compromised in their own particular way -- and integrated.

No-one who studied clinical psychology and/or psychotherapy could be left totally unaffected by Freud.

I neither completely buy into Classical Psychoanalysis, nor Traumacy-Seduction Theory as advocated by you, Dr. Masson, nor any other rendition of Psychoanalysis before or after Freud's Classical Oedipal-Sexual Theory, or even his later 'Life-Death Instinct' Theory.

I neither completely advocate any of the above theories. Nor ignore and neglect any of them.

Dr. Masson, I wish that you had stayed around to advance and finish your work in Psychoanalysis -- and/or 'anti-Classical Psychoanalysis'.

One day I will read some of your essays and/or books on 'Emotions in Animals'.

I like the title of one: 'Dogs Never Lie About Love'.

In the meantime, I will integrate your work on Psychoanalyis -- and try to re-establish your rightful place and respect in The History and Evolution of Psychoanalysis.

Which I imagine still means something to you.

Even in New Zealand.

-- dgbn, January 17h, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

Are still in process....


................................................................

Other Books I have enjoyed, have greatly influenced me, or I would like to read.

6. Ayn Rand
7. Nataniel Branden
8. Erich Fromm
9. S.I.Hayakawa/Alfed Korzybski (Language in Thought and Action; Science and Sanity)
10. Freud (pieces of his writing, not all of it)
11. Marx's work on alienation and humanism
12. Brian McGee (The Story of Philosophy)
13. Richard Tarnas (The Passion of The Western Mind)
14. Janet Terner and W.L.Pew (The Courage To Be Imperfect: The Life and Work of Rudolph Dreikurs
15. A fabulous little book by Mao Tse-Tung or pieces of it (called: 'Four Essays on Philosophy' including the essay, 'On Contradiction' - yes, Mao Tse-Tung was a political and dictatorial sociopath but he was still in part, a great philosopher. Same with Lenin)

Five more books I enjoyed or would like to read:

16. Herbert Strean and Lucy Freeman (Behind The Couch)
17. Aldo Carotnuto (Kant's Dove: The History of Transference in Psychoanalysis)
18. John Sandford (The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in each of us Affects our Relationships
19. Theodor Reik (Of Love and Lust)
20. The Don Juan Dilemma: Should Women Stay With Men Who Stray

Some day I would like to write some essays on The Psychology of Seduction, Philandering, Womanizing...as well as the more pathological dimension of serial rape and killing...From the psychology of the 'healthy, normal', we will spread out to the psychology of the extremely pathological -- and back again.

But that will have to wait for a while for now.

We have other essays -- quite a few of them - to conquer first.

-- dgb, Jan. 17th, 2009.

......................................................................

Ernest Jones – Freud’s Wizard
in Toronto
Ernest Jones on board ship in 1911 for one of his trans-Atlantic crossings each summer, 1909 to 1913.
Photo loan through the courtesy of his granddaughter, Jackie Jones, and Brenda Maddox.
Both the early career and young adulthood of Dr. Ernest Jones, “Freud’s Wizard” (the title of
Brenda Maddox’s superb new biography) could fairly be characterized as checkered. While
launching his stellar evolution to psychoanalysis, the impulsive and judgmentally-deficient Jones
periodically instigated or compounded grave professional disgrace as well as chaotic personal
life choices. At the same time, he did manage to garner selective admiration and often affection
from towering figures that included medical professors William Osler, Freud, Jung and (later)
Americans such as J.J. Putnam and Adolf Meyer. It was Osler, Regius Professor at Oxford, who
in 1908 took pains to persuade his fellow Canadian Charles Clarke, the newly-installed Professor
of Psychiatry visiting from Toronto, to take advantage of Jones’s professional availability – left
partly languishing through further blotting of his English medical, legal and social copybooks.
Well grounded in neurology, Jones added a term of study under Alzheimer and Kraepelin at the
latter’s clinic in 1907. That credit would certainly have impressed Clarke, although Freud and
Jung worried afterwards that Jones might “defect.” Delighted at being recruited, Jones returned
again to Munich in May of 1908, “recognizing that Kraepelin’s clinic and methods were what the
Canadians wanted to replicate in Toronto.” (Maddox 63) Established in Toronto from the Fall of
Illustrated Vignettes
A sampling of watershed ideas, events & personalities from our first 100 years
Departmental Newsletter feature for Centenary Year, 2007–08
1908 until 1913, Jones enigmatically continued intermingling his periodic lapses, enmities and
near-catastrophes with some notable professional accomplishments. From 1909 he published
several landmark studies; e.g., “On the Nightmare” (reworked in German as Der Alptraum), and
on Hamlet’s Oedipal complex. His creditable and largely enduring scholarship was a product of
additional time on his hands along with genuine pride in his Toronto medical faculty and hospital
appointments. Freud himself believed that Jones’s 1911 promotion to Associate Professor (until
his 1913 separation) would enhance the cause of psychoanalysis, and wrote to congratulate him
as: “My dear Professor Jones, I rejoice in giving you this new title…” (Corresp., 5 Nov. 1911).
Ultimately the official core canon of Freud ‘s psychoanalytic works extended to 19 volumes, 24
in English. Interpreting their vast, technical vocabulary into English was a problem with which
Freud’s translators perennially grappled. Scholars on the evolution of Freudian concepts trace
their origin and variations from the original German – a process made straightforward via the
1996 computer-aided Koncordanz, published in Canada, of all Freudian German terminology.
For example, the entry for Alptraum indicates that Jones’s 1910 study was preceded by a Freud
citation in 1900 (Gesammelten Werken, v.2, 37) and followed in v.15 (1933) by seven mentions.
A set of the comprehensive, six-volume Koncordanz was secured by the CAMH Archives in honour of the
University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry’s centenary year, 2007-08, through the public-spirited
donation of Jennifer Smith of Toronto, daughter of the late co-editor Dr. Philip H. Smith, Jr.
References and more information:
Brenda Maddox, Freud’s Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis.
UK: John Murray (Publishers), 2006. USA: Da Capo Press/ Perseus Books, 2007.
R. Andrew Paskauskas (ed.), The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones, 1908 –
1939. USA & UK: Belknap/ Harvard University Press, 1993.
Samuel A. Guttman, Stephen M. Parrish, John Ruffing, and Philip H. Smith, Jr. (eds.), Konkordanz zu
den Gesammelten Werken von Sigmund Freud (6 volumes). North Waterloo Academic Press, 1996.
http://www.nwap.on.ca/freud.html
John_Court@camh.net


.......................................................