Introduction
There are two things I want to do as we probe deeper into the early beginnings of Psychoanalysis, starting with Breuer, Anna O., Charcot, Janet, and Freud -- and leading up to the crucially significant years of 1895-1896.
Firstly, I want to discuss the main stresses that were on Freud's mind that would seem to lend credence to Jeffrey Masson's theory in the early 1980s (The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory, 1984, 1985, 1992) that Freud basically 'lost moral courage' when he abandoned/suppressed his pre-1897 Traumacy-Seduction Theory in favor of his post-1896 evolving 'Childhood Sexuality-Instinct-Fantasy-Oedipal Theories' that became the backbone of what is now referred to as 'Classical' (Freudian) Psychoanalysis.
If, as I will argue, Freud's post-1896 increasing abandonment of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory was based more on 'personal narcissistic bias' as opposed to any new 'scientific-clinical' developments, or valid scientific-clinical reasons for abandoning his pre-1897 theoretical conclusions, then as Masson argued back throughout the 1980s and early 90s -- and still believes today -- we have a right to fully challenge the whole philosophical-assumptive base of what is still being theorized and practised today as 'Classical' Psychoanalysis.
For historical and semantic purposes, Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis should perhaps or probably be 'frozen stiff' as it is -- otherwise, we won't know what we are talking about when we talk about it; however, even with this goal in mind, there is some room for disagreement.
I would speculate that most traditional Freudian scholars would probably define 'Classical' Psychoanalysis as 'everything Freud wrote between 1899 and 1939, forty years of theorizing starting with "Screen Memories" written in 1899 and ending at Freud's death in 1939. However, it should be noted that Freud's theorizing from 1920 onwards, starting with "Beyond The Pleasure Principle" written in 1920, and including "The Ego and The Id' written in 1923, is radically different than -- or shall we say 'modified' from -- what Freud was wrting in the early 1900s, or even, from 1899 leading up to 1920.
On this ground alone, I personally, would like to see 'Classical' Psychoanalysis redefined as 'anything Freud wrote in The Standard Edition, in any of his 24 volumes of work which would take us back to 1886 -- over 50 years of Freudian theorizing, and of course, this would include his more or less self-rejected and highly controversial 'Traumacy and Seduction Theories'. These two theories are no more inconsistent in terms of Freud's overall body of work than 'Beyond The Pleasure Priniciple' and 'The Ego and The Id' are relative to the theoretical work that Freud did between -- say, 1899 and 1919.
'Theoretical consistency' should not be a 'parameter' by which we define and describe 'Classical' Psychoanalysis -- because however we want to define or describe 'Classical' Psychoanalysis -- in the end, it is no more consistent than Freud defined and described 'the id'. Freud, in my mind, is probably the greatest -- and most creative -- theorists in Western history. But that does not mean that he was 'integratively consistent'. Based on the idealistic parameter of 'integrative consistency', Freud failed on numerous counts -- he didn't have the time, the energy, and/or the willpower to completely integrate Classical Psychoanalysis up to the point where anyone could argue that it was 'internally consistent'. Quite frankly, the same can be said for my 'wannabe masterpiece' here -- Hegel's Hotel.
I have changed and/or modified my opinion on so many different issues over time, that I have not had the time, the energy, and/or the willpower to go back into 'the archives' of my work and look at some thousand essays that I have written over the last five years (since 2006) to determine if they are all 'internally consistent' or not.
Bah! Humbug! Let the internal inconsistencies stand as a testamont to the evolution of my thinking over time -- and not necessarily wanting to change what I once believed. So I don't really judge Freud's work on any basis of 'internal inconsistency' -- except to the extent that I know that I can integrate it better -- and am in the process of doing so. Freud may have been the most creatively brilliant theorist in Western history but he was not the greatest 'integrative' thinker. He couldn't -- or wouldn't -- integrate his self-rejected Traumacy and Seduction Theories with the rest of Classical Psychoanalysis. In other words, he couldn't -- or wouldn't -- integrate 'Psychoanalytic Reality Theory and Therapy' (before May 4th, 1896) with 'Psychoanalytic Fantasy Theory and Therapy' (starting on May 4th, 1896).
I put Freud's 'abandonment and/or suppression' of his 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory' on the same level as 'his burning of many of his most private letters, including all of his letters from Fliess' -- there was a significant part of Freud's character that simply did not want to be 'publicly transparent'.
Furthermore, there was another part of Freud's character that was professionally ambitious, expedient, pragmatic, conservative, Machiavellian (as in 'the end justifies the means'). 'Suppressing a theory and/or advancing a new one' -- if it 'safeguarded' his professional career, regardless of the 'ethical implications' here -- is something that Freud would look long and hard at, and this is exactly what Freud did in the spring of 1896 under a high combined load of 'internal stress' under the influence of 'external duress'.
By my interpretive and evaluative analysis of this point in Freudian history, and following in Masson's lead but not being entirely content with the extent of Masson's argument alone -- it did not completely 'hit the mark' for me -- I believe, like Masson, that Freud 'ethically crumbled' with at least three factors playing a significant part in this story: 1. Freud's falling finances and his need to financially support his growing family; 2. 'negative economic leverage' applied by The Vienna Psychiatry and Neurology Society; 3. The Emma Ekstein Medical Fiasco involving Fliess and probably the use of cocaine combined with Freud's lingering 'ethical guilt' in this matter which happened a year earlier (February, 1895) than the time we are talking about here as described in Freud's letter to Fliess on May 4th, 1896.
I will describe my own personal interpretive analysis of this Freudian point in history in the bulk of this essay below...
Now, to be sure, there are probably thousands of clinical psychoanalyts out there today, practising their craft -- who are not practising Classical Psychoanalysis. They may be practising 'Object Relations' or 'Self-Psychology' or 'Lacanian Psychoanalysis' -- or possibly a hundred and one other 'modified derrivatives' of what they first learned under the heading of 'Classical Freudian Psychoanalysis'.
Some psychoanalysts -- and certainly a wide and lengthy assortment of psychotherapists from other schools of psychology -- still use Freud's Traumacy and/or Seduction Theory today, either in their entirety or in some modified format of it.
Relative to Psychoanalysis, it is hard to get a handle on how many psychoanalysts -- Classical or otherwise -- use Freud's old traumacy-seduction theory and therapy in any greater or lesser capacity, because no one is publicly and/or formally talking on this issue. Maybe Freud's work before 1897 is being taught at Psychoanalytic Institutes, maybe it is being practised to some greater or lesser extent -- either overtly or covertly -- but again, no one is making any public, formal statements on this matter. So anyone 'outside the loop' is left in the dark on this matter.
Buried in the confines of 'Siggy's Secret Psychoanalytic Cave -- his Secret Society' seems to be the way that The Psychoanalytic Establishment as a whole prefers to treat this issue. 'Mum's' the word -- for public consumption (meaning no public consumption at all).
If I had been in Anna Freud's shoes before she died in 1982, when Masson raised the Traumacy-Seduction Theory Controversy/Scandal for the upteenth time in the history of Psychoanalysis on a far greater scale than anyone before him, I would have most definitely done things differently.
Specifically, I would have changed/modified Classical Psychoanalysis in my best effort of clearing it from any and all possible charges of 'Victorian Patriarchal Bias'. The people left in charge of protecting 'Classical' Psychoanalysis -- and back in the 1980s that was primarily Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler -- should have been more focused on the 'present' and the 'future' of Classical Psychoanalysis -- not the 'past', and Anna's father 'ethical legacy', as much as I am sure she loved her father, perhaps too much to 'objectively' govern -- and act in the 'best interests' of -- The Psychoanalytic Empire.
Anna Freud, in the face of Masson's early 1980 ethical charges against her father, had an admittedly huge dilemma facing her -- and conflict of interest -- between choosing to protect the ethical integrity of her father's character vs. 'unpathologizing' the structure and psycho-dynamics of Classical Psychoanalysis. Or perhaps she could have done the latter while not admitting or agreeing to any alleged ethical guilt on her father's path. But she didn't. Anna Freud did nothing to alleviate or compensate for the theoretical and ethical charges aimed against Freud by Masson, and Masson had some solid ethical grounds to base these charges.
Instead, Jeffrey Masson, Projects Director of The Freud Archive, and third from the top of The Freudian hierarchy at the time, on the combined decision of the Board of Directors of The Freudian Establishment, which I assume included Kurt Eissler, second to the top of The Freudian hierarchy, behind only Anna Freud, but who had also become a very close friend of Masson's, but still, at the same time, was ultimately 'faithful' to the 'ethical integrity' of Sigmund Freud's legacy, just like Anna Freud -- two 'unconditional protectors of Freud's ethical integrity' -- in the face of some strong 'ethical charges' that were being aimed directly at father Freud -- regarding the latter's 'abandonment' and/or 'suppression' of his 1895 and 1896 'Traumacy' and 'Seduction' Theories, respectively.
Ultimately, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler both failed Classical Psychoanalysis -- and where it needed to go, as opposed to where it came from -- in the 'perceived prioritized need' to protect father Freud's ethical legacy. In this regard, Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler -- as well as failing the future of Classical Psychoanalysis -- also failed 'egalitarian feminism' and 'women's civil rights' -- instead, preferring to still giving 'pseudo-legitimacy' to father Freud's 'Patriarchal Victorian Values and Narcissistic Biases' that had become hugely outdated by 1982. But in this regard, perhaps both Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler, as the two foremost leaders of The Freudian Empire, had themselves become 'outdated'.
Masson was certainly waiting in the wings to add 'new (or old, 'pre-Classical') blood' to Classical Psychoanalysis but ultimately, The Freudian Establishment as a whole chose to both 'dismiss' and to 'depreciate' the 'rebellious value' that Masson had brought to Psychoanalysis. It became an 'Either/Or' Ethical Duel where, on the face of things, Masson lost, but 'history' often if not usually has a means of 'undoing' and 'reversing' past injustices and untruths.
If Anna Freud had really wanted to protect the 'ethical integrity' of her father's character, then she should have never allowed Masson to publish Freud's Complete Letters to Wilhelm Fliess. Sigmund Freud would have most certainly have had these letters destroyed if he had ever been able to get his hands on them. They contained many of his most intimate thoughts to his closest friend through the most controversial building years of Classical Psychoanalysis. And for anyone who chooses to read these letters, Freud does not come out 'smelling like roses' in many of them. Freud -- like all of us -- was human, and perhaps much too 'cathected' to his own personal narcissism and ambition.
In words that are much more 'compacted' than those offered by Masson in 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory', I will do my best to 'be as objective' as possible in the case I present below but in a way that ultimately incriminates Freud, not Masson. Here is the story of 1895-1896 as I have interpreted it.
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For The Psychoanalytic Establishment, the issue of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory -- particularly in light of the Masson-Freud scandal of the 1980s -- always seems to be such a 'powder-keg of gunpowder waiting for the smallest spark to ignite the whole barrel of gunpowder -- again, for the upteenth time' -- that The Establishment as a whole seems to wish to keep the gunpowder keg away from all possible ignition sources.
If I am another possible 'ignition source', then I expect that i will be treated like all other past figures in this regard -- the ignition source will be left to 'burn itself out in the wind' -- like all others -- this has more or less worked for the past 70 to 100 years. Why should I be treated any differently. To use another metaphor, the worker bees do everything in their collective power to keep any and all intruders as far away from the 'bee hive' and the 'queen bee' as is necessary to protect/defend their ongoing existence -- as 'classically' learned.
I certainly did not come into this issue with any wish to 're-scandalize' Freud for any of his historical behaviors. As I believe I have said elsewhere, about 70 to 80 percent of my ideas come from Freud in some direct or indirect fashion.
Still, if historical reports seem to show that Freud's 'cocaine abuse' for more than 10 years (1884 to at least 1895) interfered in any capacity with his 'better medical, theoretical, and/or therapeutic judgment' -- then who is guilty of 'scandalizing' Freud's name -- Masson, me, or Freud himself?
In particular, if it can be shown that specific 'stresses' that were converging on Freud all at the same time in 1895 and 1896 -- 1. Freud's cocaine use and the negative effect on his health and judgment; 2. the Emma Ekstein medical scandal where she almost bled to death from Fliess' and Freud's ill-conceived 'nasal-sexual surgery' or 'folie a deux' as Masson has called it (1984, 1992, The Assault on Truth, p. 99); 3. the recent birth of Anna Freud in conjunction with Freud's 5 other children and his wife, all of whom needed to be economically supported; 4. the April 21st, 1896 meeting of The Society for Psychiatry and Neuorology in which Freud read his new paper, 'The Aetiology of Hysteria' (1896) in which he connected the main cause of hysteria with the client's repression of childhood sexual traumacies/seductions/assaults/rape/abuse -- and which was essentially publicly ridiculed by the group members present that night, Krafft-Ebing saying, 'It sounds like a scientific fairy tale' . (1985, The Complete Lettersof Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904, p. 184); 5. Freud's post-meeting 'ostracization' by this same group of medical peers and superiors -- and the fact that they stopped 'referring patients' to him (as stated by Freud himself in The Complete Letters, p. 185., see below) -- until he started to 'retract' his 'seduction theory' and move in the direction of his freshly evolving 'instinct-fantasy' theory...at which point, or some point, he obviously started to get cases again; 6. the impending death of his father in October of 1896...
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Part of a letter from Freud to Fliess on May 4th, 1896,
'I am as isolated as you would wish me to be. Word was given out to abandon me, for a void is forming all around me. So far I bear it with equanamity. I find it more troublesome that this year for the first time my consulting room is empty, that for weeks on end I see no new faces, cannot begin any new treatments, and that none of the old ones are completed. Things are so difficult and trying that it requires, on the whole, a strong constitution to deal with them. (1985, The Complete Letters, p. 185.)
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At the same time, in the same letter, Freud was still thinking of the 'botched' Emma Ekstein nasal operation of February 1895, over a year earlier, in which Ekstein almost bled to death because Fliess unknowingly left about half a metre of gauze in her nose for about about a month while he left Vienna (where the surgery was conducted) and went back to his home town, Berlin, in Germany.
In fairness to Freud, Freud had the same type of nasal operation as Esktein did during Fliess' same visit to Vienna in February, 1895, with not as horrifically acute after-effects as Ekstein experienced in terms of a long piece of gauze left in his nose, but still, he endured significantly bad health problems for a good year afterwards, including the usual nasal infections (pus running out his nose), migraines, weak pulse, and heart arrhythmia.
It would seem, and I think most scholars would entirely agree here (sorry, no references but you can check this generalization out yourself), that Freud's 'theoretical and medical partnership' with Fliess was almost entirely misguided -- and hugely dangerous to potential or actual 'guinea pig' patients like Emma Ekstein in terms of taking unnecessary risks with 'medically offside' surgeries and 'highly trusting, highly susceptible' patients. In short, Fliess and Freud were acting like a couple of 'back room abortionists' -- and both should have lost their medical licenses for this operation.
Both Fliess and Freud had 'gone medically offside' on this type of 'non-sanctioned, nasal-sexual operation' that was designed to do, I don't know what....alleviate the negative side effects of 'too much cocaine up possibly all three of their noses' -- this is certainly speculative on my part but let's put 2 and 2 and 2 together here...What do you think was happening that led up to -- and supposedly 'necessited' -- two 'nasal-sexual' operations -- one on Emma, and one on Freud? Ah, maybe I should 'grab this dirty laundry' and do what a thousand theorists have done before me -- throw the dirty laundry into the laundry room before the public gets to see and/or read it, and either leave the laundry room door tightly closed (Anna Freud, Eissler -- and surprising, even Masson didn't get involved in Freud's 'cocaine misadventures' at a time when Masson was accusing Freud of 'loss of moral courage'), and/or put Freud's dirty laundry through the washer and dryer before it is proudly shown to the public as 'nice and clean' -- no more stinky smell of 'pus running out of anyone's nose'...)
I suggest that if you want any more substaniated proof and/or circumstantial evidence, just read the Freud-Fliess letters of 1895-1896...much of the story is told in Freud's own words...and no wonder he wanted these letters destroyed....
Oh! Let's just turn the other way on the darkest, and probably most unethical two years of Freud's history...and pretend this particular event never happened -- even if it did 'coincidentally' happen -- including the operation's 'psychological after-effects' on Freud's 'self-incrimination', 'guilt', and then the 'working through' of this guilt with what amounted to a very 'neurotic psychological defense mechanism' on Freud's part (specifically, 'rationalization', 'justification', 'denial') -- Freud was just entering into 'the defense mechanism' portion of this horrific medical event when Freud got 'slammed again' -- psychologically -- this time by The Society for Psychiatry and Neurology in Vienna who didn't like his new 1896 essay that connected 'hysteria' with 'childhood sexual abuse' with Krafft-Ebing describing his essay as being 'like a scientific fairy tale' (although 'scientific fairy tales' are not always untrue -- try the 'scientific fairy tales of: Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein...my editorial addition).
Since the two psychological problems were in his mind at the exact same time as witnessed by his May 4th, 1896 letter to Fliess, perhaps we should not find it too surprising when Freud ended up 'using the same stone to kill two different birds' -- his fresh new 'longing-wishful fantasy' theory (or was it Fliess'?).
A year after this botched nasal operation, Ekstein was no longer 'the traumacy victim' of 'two grossly over-reaching, unethical doctors' (Freud and Fliess), and 'one negligently performing doctor' (Fliess); instead, Emma Ekstein was now 're-interpreted' a 'hysterical bleeder' who 'longed' to be back in the company of the two doctors who almost killed her. Ouch! That theory is almost as painful to read -- actually not even remotely close -- to the brutal surgery that Emma had to endure from two 'totally unpardonable, ethically offside scientific doctors'.
How can we think anything but 2 plus 2 equal 4 when Freud used the same 'longing, wishful fantasy' theory to now change his 'childhood sexual abuse' theory into a 'wishful, longing, childhood sexual impulse' theory of children 'sexually longing for' their parent of the opposite sex and covering this 'internal, unconscious longing' up with 'distorted, false memories of childhood sexual abuse'(the 'still to be born', but fastly evolving 'Oedipus Complex'.) This too -- which was essentially being created at the same time as the Emma Ekstein affair and the same time that Freud was being 'economically starved' by members of The Society For Psychiatry and Neurology in Vienna -- this too, is extremely painful to read under these contextual, historical circumstances -- which other than being confronted by Masson in the 1980s -- have largely been ignored.
Thus, it is entirely plausable -- indeed, probable -- that Freud used the same 'newly born May 4th, 1896 theory' - i.e., the same 'wishful fantasy, longing, theory', or the beginning of 'The Oedipus Complex' Theory -- to 'narcissistically cover himself up, politically, economically and professionally, and to put himself back on the road to 'professional and economic success' again....partly under the 'coercive duress' of The Vienna Society for Psychiatry and Neurology.
The precedent -- and the prototype -- of the 'longing-fantasy' theory had been created by Freud to 'absolve' Fliess and himself of 'medical guilt' (that they both deserved to feel because they both should have lost their medical license over the very badly conceived, probably medically non-sanctioned, and negligently performed surgery), and now with this new 'longing-fantasy' fresh in Freud's memory -- presto -- Freud found that it worked for getting himself out of 'The Seduction Theory Poltical and Professional Mess' as well.
Not only did Freud 'lose moral courage' under 'professional coercion and duress' -- but even worse than this -- Freud under intense stress, concocted a 'longing-fantasy' theory (which would later become the essence of his 'Oedipus Complex Theory'), that essentially allowed him to stop talking about 'the reality' of childhood sexual assaults!
It is the same theory that 'rapists' often use in court -- 'She wanted it.'
Presto!! 'Two -- two mints -- in one'.
While a hundred and fifteen years of psychoanalysts (with the exception of Masson, Ferenczi, and a few others...) couldn't or wouldn't put two and two and maybe two again together here, in this May 4th letter, and see what an essentially 'dastardly deed' Freud was in the process of pulling off....Freud was essentially about to remove Psychoanalysis from its 'ethical high ground' -- remove the 'strong foundational basement' from Psychoanalysis that would protect it from any and all later 'abandonment and abolishment' criticisms as 'political and professional attitudes' started to change in favor of offering more support for 'victimized children and women' -- spawned especially by the growth and evolution of the 'feminist movement' that was essentially politically non-existent back in 1896 when Freud was floundering in the face of patriarchal, Victorian professional economic intimidation and coercion towards him that was effectively starving him out of business.
Freud 'hung in' for a couple of weeks -- from April 21st, 1896 to May 4th, 1896 -- but the May 4th letter to Fliess shows him starting to 'come apart at the seams' under all the stress he was feeling at the time including a 'boatload of medical guilt' still left over from the February, 1895 surgical nightmare with Fliess doing nasal surgery on Emma Ekstein. Since the 'traumacy' theory didn't 'fit well' in this episode -- actually, it fit very well but Freud didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he and Fliess were Emma's 'medical victimizers'. Rather, Freud was getting more and more comfortable with perceiving Emma as a 'hysterical bleeder' -- she bled because she 'unconsciously longed' to see her two medical victimzers' again.
This perception greatly 'alleviated' Freud's medical guilt -- and lo and behold -- he started to see that this 'longing' theory could and would do very well at getting him out of his 'Seduction Theory Political Mess' as well. No longer were his female clients 'sexually assaulted (usually by their respective fathers) as children'; rather, now they 'longed' to be 'sexually assaulted by their fathers'. Politically, the theory would work very well with alleviating and subduing the 'political-economic onslaught' against him of The Vienna Society for Psychiatry and Neurology because now, 'no crimes were being committed against children by grown men'; rather, his female clients as either teenagers/adults looking back into their childhood, or at the actual time of the alleged 'childhood memory' had 'unconsciously distorted these memories because they actually 'longed to be seduced and/or assaulted' by their father. This alleged 'psychological phenomenon', most of us already know, came to be labelled as 'The Oedipus or Electra Complex'.
In short, Freud was letting his own 'neurotic guilt and anxiety' take over and 'manipulate' the outcome and direction of his psychological theories. Sad -- in fact, very disturbing -- when contrasted with the 'idealized mythological image' of the man we have come to associate with the 'courageous, righteous pursuit of truth' even in the face of 'very harsh, critical political and social opposition' -- which Freud did indeed get -- but if you follow the actual historical reports, especially the reports in Freud's own words through his very private, intimate letters to Fliess -- the man does not come out looking 'nearly as ethically or morally perfect', indeed, far, far from it.
Today, the 'old wood house' that I would describe as 'Classical Freudian' Psychoanalysis -- is a far cry from the much stronger, more durable 'brick house' that Freud was in the process of building before 1895 and 1896 rolled around.
The current 'wood house' -- at least the one that Freud built after 1896 -- is very old and decrepit, and has no solid basement foundation, but The Psychoanalytic Establishment, still wanting to 'protect and serve' Freud's legacy as an 'ethically courageous man' -- a man of 'impeccable moral integrity' -- continues to 'paint bricks' over top of the 'rotting wood foundation' -- and say that everything is 'perfectly okay as it is' with 'Classical' Freudian Psychoanalysis...
At least, that is what they say for 'public consumption' -- like any 'political party' or 'institution' would say in order to stave off the fear and/or anger/rage of a 'righteously indignant public that starts to see and/or smell the full extent of the internal/external political scandal and the rot of crumbling (or already crumbled) ethical-moral values that the institution is/was allegedly built on'...Fool's gold...
That Classical Psychoanalysts -- or at least the most 'unenlightened' of them -- are still able, under the 'ethical umbrella' of Freud himself and the whole network of worldwide Psychoanalytic Institutions to 're-interpret' a woman's very real and horrific childhood rape under The Classical Psychoanalytic Principle of The Oedipus/Electra Complex' as not a 'real rape at all' but rather, as her own 'wishful, longing sexual fantasy toward her (seductionist/rapist) father' -- that all Classical Psychoanalysts, since Freud, have actually been 'taught' to interpret 'all female memories of their own 'alleged childhood seductions/assaults/rapes by their father' in this manner -- is nothing short of a 'psychotherapeutic, ethical holocaust'....that carries on...
In 1896, Freud made a 'Faustian deal with the devil' -- and it wasn't all his entire fault' because the 'devil' was staring him in the face in the form of 'The Vienna Society for Psychiatry and Neurology' -- a society that could either 'feed' Freud or 'starve' him depending on whether or not he decided to 'drop' his infamous Seduction (Childhood Sexual Assault) Theory.
I do not say this lightly. And it is not where I wished to arrive. But it is where 'very damning circumstantial, coincidental, historical evidence' has brought me. For me, the May 4th letter from Freud to Fliess is the most damning piece of evidence of all -- the fact that Freud's and Fliess' 'hysterical longing' theory pertaining to the 'reason' for Emma Ekstein's massive, post-surgical nasal bleeding episodes (even though a half a metre of gauze had been left up her nose for a month) and a report from Freud that The Vienna Society for Psychiatry and Neurology had ostracized him and taken away all of his client business; i.e., the fact that these two events came together in time within the contents of the May 4th, 1896 letter, and the fact that the same 'longing' theory could be used to get him out of 'the scalding hot water' of both -- this, too me is too 'coincidental' to ignore.
Plus the fact that both Freud and Fliess were 'dangerously wild' doctors -- far too ready to 'play with patients' lives' in the pursuit of their own 'narcissistic ambition' and 'scientific discoveries'. What made Freud great on the one hand, also made him very dangerous on the other hand -- in the end, more concerned about himself and his own raw ambition than he was in the welfare of his patients.
If the Emma Ekstein fiasco had been a 'once in a career' colossal error, that Freud never came close to repeating again -- then, I could probably look the other way on this episode, and/or say, that in any professional field, including medicine, errors, even bad errors, happen. 'Professional and legal guidelines' are usually established according to the prevailing 'knowledge' and 'ethics' of the day, but Freud and Fliess ran 'roughshod' over these guidelines like they didn't even exist -- or they didn't care that these guidelines existed. Neither Freud or Fliess should have had medical licenses. And this was not the first time that Freud had run into 'ethical trouble' with his 'medical behaviors'.
In his early professional years (1884 to 1891), Freud, from all reports that I have read (see Sulloway, Freud: Biologist of The Mind, 1979, 1992, The Cocaine Episode -- that should have had an 's' on the end of 'Episode', my addition, p. 25) was handing out cocaine to his friends, fiancee/wife, and patients like it was candy, trumpeting it professionally as a 'magic substance', even as the 'bad consequences of using cocaine were starting to pour in' -- and most, if not all, 'prudent' doctors surrounding Freud had stopped using cocaine medically for all of the supposedly 'magical things' that it did -- stimulant, local anaesthetic, cure for vomiting and indigestion, and as a means for withdrawal from morphine addiction. (Sulloway, p. 25.) But Freud persisted, continued to 'trumpet' its benefits, and then he had a good friend and patient (Flieschl) die in 1991, at least in part from cocaine addiction, prescribed by Freud, as a means of supposedly getting him off of his morphine addiction (which he was taking because of a 'bad thumb amptutation surgery' which was obviously causing him grievious pain).
Unbelievably, this was still not enough to get through to Freud's thick, arrogant brain, and in 1895, Freud was still taking cocaine himself, probably along with both Emma Ekstein and Fliess. There is no definitive proof that I can find here -- just strong 'coincidental and circumstantial evidence' with all these 'nasal problems' and 'nasal-sexual associations' and two grievious nasal surgeries in February 1895 (performed by Fliess on Ekstein and Freud)...
And letters being signed like this one...
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Freud writing to Fliess, November 29th, 1895, and signing off,
'I hope soon to hear many good things of you, wife, child, and sexuality through the nose.
Most cordial greetings,
Your Sigm.' (1985, The Complete Letters, p. 152)
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No wonder why Freud wanted all his letters to Fliess destroyed...
Does any Freudian scholar and/or Classical Psychoanalyst wish to argue any of the points I have made above? I would be glad to be 'shown and enlightened' differently...
Over and over again, all I hear coming out from behind Psychoanalytic Walls...
Is 'The Silence of The Lambs'...
Sometimes I look into the Abyss....
And 'The Raging Bull in The China Shop'....I see...
Is not Freud's rage against his father...
Is not Masson's rage against Freud in the 1980s...
Is not my father's rage against 'injustice' -- or 'imperfection' -- in my childhood...
No....
The Bull in The China Shop...
Is me...
When I see...
Hypocrites, narcissists, and manipulators...
Hiding behind Grand Marble Walls...
And Ivory Towers...
Living behind white picket fences...
With SOME out-of-touch psychoanalysts
Saying...'Emma Ekstein was a hysterical bleeder'...
And ALL female clients childhood memories of 'being sexually assaulted by their respective fathers' are 'unconscious sexual fantasies'...
And SOME out-of-touch politicians, administrators, psychiatrists, neurologists, psychoanalysts, parents...
Saying....
'There's no problem here...'
'The kids are alright...'
Again, I must emphasize the all important ideal of 'homeostatic-(bi-polar-dialectic) balance and justice. It is so easy to 'overcompensate' from one extreme to its opposite...
'Painting a pretty picture' to hide the transgressions and atrocities that occur behind closed doors is an atrocity in itself. But so too is becoming a 'touchless society' where everyone is too afraid to touch anyone else lest they be accused of some form of 'dastardly sexual misconduct'...
The ethical answer -- as always -- lies somewhere in the middle...
Between traumacy and impulse...
Between assertiveness and sensitivity...
Between self and social interest...
Between narcissism and altruism...
Between justice for men...and justice for women...
Between justice for adults and justice for kids...
We must not get trapped at either or any extreme...
But keep rhetorically fighting our way...
Back to the democratic middle...
Back to the point of homeostatic-dialectic balance...
Not to let the narcissism...
Of government, social, and/or corporate-institutional power...
Defeat us...
Nobody wants to attend the funeral...
Of ethical idealism...
Do we?
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All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. -- Thomas Jefferson
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-- dgb, March 31st, modified/expanded April 2nd, April 3rd, May 31st, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,
-- Are Still in Process....
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From Wikipedia...
In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. For example courage, a virtue, if taken to excess would manifest as recklessness and if deficient as cowardice.
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And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
-- Bob Dylan
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BRUTUS
Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my
cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me
for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that
you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and
awake your senses, that you may the better judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of
Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar
was no less than his. If then that friend demand
why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:
--Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and
die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live
all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was
valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his
fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his
ambition. Who is here so base that would be a
bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If
any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so
vile that will not love his country? If any, speak;
for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.
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Hattie Carroll was a maid in the kitchen
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn't even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger
And you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain't the time for your tears.
In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught 'em
And that ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin' that way witout warnin'
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.
-- Bob Dylan
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
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The loss of ethical idealism, empathy and caring,
-- And social fairness,
Is the birth of personal and social narcissism and ethical inertia,
-- The Failing and Falling of Rome...and Psychoanalysis...
And the loss of our own sense of
Personal power...
To make things 'ethically right' again.
'The darkest hour is just before dawn'.
-- dgb, May 31st, 2011.
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