The biggest conceptual problem with Freud's concept of 'The Id' is that it
is one-dimensional in the way that it looks at what is happening in the unconscious or subconscius. It is focused on 'instinctual impulses' -- as they arise from the unconscious/subconscious -- but whatever happened to 'repressed traumatic memories' that used to be the sole occupents of the unconscious/subconscious in Freud's theorizing before 1897? Gone off the Psychoanalytic Road Map! Gone off the Psychoanalytic Template!
'Childhood trauma'? What childhood trauma? Classical Psychoanalysis blinds itself against its pre-1897 beginnings..and sees everything with a one-sided 'instinctual impulse' eye... Freud turned his back on his historical and clinical past -- and in so doing, he turned his back on everyone of his clients' traumatic pasts as well...or at least that is what he tried to sell the public, his co-workers, and his students after 1897.
Freud was a brilliantly creative theorist but he was a one-sided, over-generalizer -- and took Classical Psychoanalysis down a one-dimensional path -- the study of 'instincts and their vicissitudes' which, to be sure, was an important realm of study, but at the same time, left out half of what should be the proper, rightful foundation of Psychoanalysis -- specifically, 'traumacy theory', which up until 1896, was the sole foundation of Psychoanalysis (or what today is generally called 'Pre-Classical' Psychoanalysis).
That Freud could leave behind him the hard, clinical and theoretical work he did between, let's say, the winter of 1885-1886, when Freud studied under Charcot and started to learn about 'traumacy theory' in its relation to hysteria, up to 1896, when Freud reduced his traumacy theory to 'the sexual traumacy' theory -- or 'seduction theory' as it is usually called -- remains one of the biggest mysteries of the history of psychoanalysis, and Freud's life. Academics are still debating what actually happened in the spring of 1896, as Freud began his radical conversion over to 'fantasy and instinct theory'.
The 'seduction theory' in particular lasted only about 4 months in the winter and spring of 1896 before it was quickly, sharply, and harshly rejected by Freud like a man or a woman who had quickly, sharply, and harshly rejected Freud. Maybe that is exactly what had happened -- or at least a part of the significant 'psycho-drama' that unfolded in the spring of 1896.
There was significant drama happening in Freud's personal and professional life in the spring of 1896, and shortly thereafter.
Such as:
It is my belief that Freud indeed viewed the two years of 1895 and 1896 as a time period of extreme 'medical guilt' (starting in the spring of 1895 with the Emma Ekstein medical fiasco -- a butchered 'nasal-sexual surgery' conducted by Freud's closest friend Fliess on Emma (and Freud too) that should never have happened, with 'recreational' or 'very loosely prescribed medical' cocaine quite likely being the main source of the whole problem).
Emma Ekstein almost bled to death from nasal hemorrhaging at least two or three times because of a long string of gauze that was left in Emma's nose for a month before it was finally pulled out in the first 'traumatic nasal hemmorhage'...
A year later after living with his medical guilt for over a year -- and I shake my head at this -- Freud was calling Emma an 'hysterical bleeder'....which was Freud's first significant 'conversion' of 'the just rejected, traumacy-seduction theory' to what Freud would utilize from that moment on (as portrayed in a letter to Fliess on May 4th, 1896) -- his brand, spanking new 'instinct-fantasy' theory which also matched up very nicely with the work he was doing in the area of 'screen memories' (where memories were no longer 'real' memories but 'fantasies', or they were 'screens' for other more etiologically important 'repressed memories')....and his 'dream theory' where dreams were being viewed as 'wish fulfillments'.
With his new 'instinct-fantasy', 'wish-fulfillment', and 'screen memory' theory all woven together, the fact that Freud and Fliess almost killed Emma Ekstein became 'non-important'; instead, she became a 'hysterical bleeder' who 'wanted' to bleed so that she could get closer to the two 'professional men' who almost killed her....with 'cocaine' lingering in the middle of this horrific incident that Freud had to 'historically, medically, and psychoanalytically 're-interpret' in the face of the horrific, medical guilt that he had felt for a year....and finally....'narcissistically...he was able to 'widdle it away' with his 'new fantasy-wish-fulfillment' theory... Emma was no longer a surgically victimized and traumatized patient but rather -- a 'hysterical bleeder'.... and Freud's own 'heart, migraine, and nasal problems' that he was experiencing throughout his 30 and 40s -- what were these?: 'hysterical heart, migraine, and nasal problems'?
Come on, people, especially, you Freudian academics out there -- how many times can an academic Freudian scholar turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?
Freud was taking cocaine from 1884 to at least the time of the Emma Ekstein medical fiasco, and indeed, probably til at least the end of 1895...a man doesn't usually get 'heart attacks' in his 30s and 40s unless there is a strong reason for it -- in this case, there is a very strong, likely reason for his heart attacks -- a reason that not too many Freudian scholars want to admit, or at least admit publicly. Ummmh? How about cocaine abuse.
Maybe Peter Swales has gone down this 'cocaine' path before me but it is hard to find information on what exactly he might have said or written now about the Emma Ekstein incident...
Swales did investigate Freud's early 'cocaine papers' (Robert Boynton, May 24th, 1993, The New York Observer...http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=14) but beyond that I don't know what Swales said or wrote in this regard. He seems to have been largely dismissed academically as a 'guerilla psychoanalytic historian' -- although highly respected for his amazing detective work and his ability to find bits and pieces of information that no 'regular, normal' Freudian scholar and historian could find...
Masson has challenged Swales' 'ethical values' as has Swales challenged Masson's ethical values. The two men certainly don't like each other. I will take Masson's corner for the most part, although even Masson has largely 'steered away' from Freud's horrendous cocaine 'misadventures'.
Regardless, within the realm of 'known historical facts', how about the seemingly obvious inference to me from these known historical facts on the duration of Freud's long cocaine use/abuse (as reported in Freud's own letters to Fliess) that cocaine had been slowly poisoning Freud's body since he was 28 til at least 39 (1884 to 1895).
In 1895, when Freud was having 'heart' and 'nasal' problems as well as his 'migranes' and 'pus running out of his nose' -- Freud caught the 'nasal-heart' connection... He just seems to have rather stupidly not figured out the 'cocaine' part of the equation... Cocaine had been circulating through his nose, brain, heart, and the rest of his body for 11 years by then.
Was Freud 'addicted' to cocaine? Of course not -- most of the Freudian scholars will say. He just used it 'occasionally' to 'alleviate' his depression, give him 'energy', and give him more 'stimulus and endurance' -- like the soldiers in World War 1 used it in the trenches to fight longer -- in this same sense, Freud used cocaine late at night to write longer...particularly when he was tired and/or not feeling well...
Does this interpretation of Freud's behavior back then....make me a 'guerilla historian of psychoanalysis'? Should I be lumped in with Swales as having some sort of 'transference axe to grind'? You know what they say...'If the shoe fits, wear it.'...
I would like to think that I have a much greater goal to accomplish here than to simply criticize Freud for medical behaviors that he rightly deserves to be aptly criticized for...Fliess and Freud should have been charged and convicted of 'medical malpractice'...And for Freud, it wasn't the first time that cocaine had interfered with his good judgment in dealing with a patient...In 1891, Freud had had a patient and good friend die on him while he was prescribing cocaine to him...to try to 'cure' an already existing morphine addiction...
Once medically bitten by cocaine, you would think twice shy...and a lot medically wiser four years later...But Freud once again entered into dangerous medical territory...and was bitten again...by the same drug...cocaine....we don't know for sure that Emma was involved in cocaine...but why was she having nasal surgery? And Freud? We know from the Lettters that Fliess was using cocaine medically as well...I'd hazard a guess that some of that 'extra medical cocaine' was being used by Fliess 'recreationally'...
Fliess certainly seemed to have a good understanding of cocaine...Who else (besides Freud) would concoct a 'nasal-sexual theory'....According to Freud, Fliess was going to write a 'Nose and Sex' book (The Complete Letters, p. 172, The February 13th, 1896 Letter ....please tell me that it never got written...or if it did get written...and published...someone explain it to me...
Meanwhile, if it looks like a duck...quacks like a duck...swims like a duck...and has the 'bill' of a duck which might be used to ingest cocaine...leading to 'more energy' and possibly even 'sexual arousal', then perhaps it is a duck taking cocaine...
In my books, Freud, Fliess, and Emma Ekstein were all taking cocaine leading up to the ill fated nasal surgery of February, 1895...
Nothing entirely 'provable' perhaps in a court of law...kind of like The Barry Bonds... and most of the rest...of the baseball steroid cases...just too many 'coincidences' and too many pieces of 'circumstantial evidence'...all coming together in the same time and place...ending in a medical disaster that Freud should have been smart enough to avoid, given his similar experience in the 1880s...
But Freud -- perhaps obsessively, erotically, and neurotically...didn't walk away from this 'underground, out of bounds' nasal-sexual operation that went horribly wrong...and then he invented a 'longing hysterical bleeder' theory to 'narcissistically cover up' his and Fliess' -- and Emma's very real -- medical nightmare... ................................................................................
Physiological Effects of Cocaine
Cocaine produces its powerful high by acting on the brain. But as cocaine travels through the blood, it affects the whole body.
Cocaine is responsible for more U.S. emergency room visits than any other illegal drug. Cocaine harms the brain, heart, blood vessels, and lungs -- and can even cause sudden death. Here's what happens in the body:
Heart. Cocaine is bad for the heart. Cocaine increases heart rate and blood pressure while constricting the arteries supplying blood to the heart. The result can be a heart attack, even in young people without heart disease. Cocaine can also trigger a deadly abnormal heart rhythm called arrhythmia, killing instantly.
Brain. Cocaine can constrict blood vessels in the brain, causing strokes. This can happen even in young people without other risk factors for strokes. Cocaine causes seizures and can lead to bizarre or violent behavior.
Lungs and respiratory system. Snorting cocaine damages the nose and sinuses. Regular use can cause nasal perforation. Smoking crack cocaine irritates the lungs and, in some people, causes permanent lung damage.
Gastrointestinal tract. Cocaine constricts blood vessels supplying the gut. The resulting oxygen starvation can cause ulcers, or even perforation of the stomach or intestines.
Kidneys. Cocaine can cause sudden, overwhelming kidney failure through a process called rhabdomyolysis. In people with high blood pressure, regular cocaine use can accelerate the long-term kidney damage caused by high blood pressure.
Sexual function. Although cocaine has a reputation as an aphrodisiac, it actually may make you less able to finish what you start. Chronic cocaine use can impair sexual function in men and women. In men, cocaine can cause delayed or impaired ejaculation.
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Licit and Illicit Drugs
The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine, 1972
Chapter 35. Cocaine
....Freud wrote to his fiancee, Martha Bernays, on April 21, 1884. "I am procuring some (cocaine) myself and will try it with cases of heart disease and also of nervous exhaustion. . . .`3
The account of Freud's experiences which follows is drawn largely from the three-volume Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, by Ernest Jones.http://www.ukcia.org/research/cunion/cu35.htm
Freud "tried the effect of a twentieth of a gram [50 milligrams] and found it turned the bad mood he was in into cheerfulness, giving him the feeling of having dined well 'so that there is nothing at all one need bother about,' but without robbing him of any energy for exercise or work." 4
In addition to taking cocaine himself, Freud offered some to his friend and associate, Dr. Ernst von Flcischl-Marxow, who was suffering from an exceedingly painful disease of the nervous system (which was later to prove fatal), and who was addicted to morphine. Freud also prescribed cocaine for a patient with gastric catarrh. The initial results in all three cases were favorable. Freud decided cocaine was "a magical drug," and he wrote his fiancee, Martha:
If it goes well I will write an essay on it and I expect it will win its place in therapeutics by the side of morphium and superior to it. I have other hopes and intentions about it. I take very small doses of it regularly against depression and against indigestion, and with the most brilliant success.... In short it is only now that I feel I am a doctor, since I have helped one patient and hope to help more. If things go on in this way we need have no concern about being able to come together and to stay in Vienna.5
Freud even sent some of his precious cocaine to Martha, "to make her strong and give her cheeks a red color." Indeed, Dr. Jones writes, "he pressed it on his friends and colleagues, both for themselves and their patients; he gave it to his sisters. In short, looked at from the vantage point of our present knowledge, he was rapidly becoming a public menace." 6
In a subsequent letter to Martha, Freud wrote more on his personal experience with cocaine:
Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are froward you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body. [Italics in original.] In my last severe depression I took coca again and a small dose lifted me to the heights in a wonderful fashion. I am just now busy collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance. 7
Freud's haste in publishing his findings may astonish twentieth-century readers. On April 21, 1884, he was still only planning to secure some cocaine. On June 18, his essay was completed; and the "Song of Praise" to cocaine was published in the July 1884 issue of the Centralblatt fur die gesammte Therapie.
This essay, Dr. Jones writes, had "a tone that never recurred in Freud's writings, a remarkable combination of objectivity with a personal warmth as if he were in love with the content itself. He used expressions uncommon in a scientific paper such as 'the most gorgeous excitement' that animals display after an injection of cocaine, and administering an 'offering' of it rather than a 'dose'; he heatedly rebuffed the 'slander' that had been published about this precious drug. This artistic presentation must have contributed much to the interest the essay aroused in Viennese and other medical circles. . . . He even gave an account of the religious observances connected with its use, and mentioned the mythical saga of how Manco Capac, the Royal Son of the Sun-God, had sent it as 'a gift from the gods to satisfy the hungry, forify the weary, and make the unfortunate forget their sorrows.' " 8
More to the point, Freud described in detail the effects of small doses of cocaine on his own depression. These included "exhilaration. and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person. . . . You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work. . . . In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe that you are under the influence of any drug.... Long intensive mental or physical work is performed without any fatigue.... This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcohol. . . . Absolutely no craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug; one feels rather a certain curious aversion to it." 9 Cocaine, Freud concluded, was useful for "those functional states comprised under the name neurasthenia"10 Freud at this time had diagnosed his own depressions as neurasthenic-as well as for indigestion and for the withdrawal of morphine.
Freud also sought to inject cocaine directly into the area of a nerve to block intractable pain. In this he failed, but others succeeded;* and until better agents became available, cocaine was often used as local anesthesia for surgery.
Some of Freud's findings on cocaine as a psychoactive drug were amply confirmed by subsequent research. "The subjective effects of cocaine include an elevation of mood that often reaches proportions of euphoric excitement," Dr. Jaffe reported in Goodman and Gilman's textbook (1965). "It produces a marked decrease in hunger, an indifference to pain, and is reputed to be the most potent anti-fatigue agent known. The user enjoys a feeling of great muscular strength and increased mental capacity and greatly overestimates his capabilities. The euphoria is accompanied by generalized sympathetic stimulation. As is the case with amphetamine, a disturbed personality is not a prerequisite for cocaine-induced euphoria, and the drug is quite effective in relatively normal personalities." 11
Freud's experience, however, proved to be only part of the story. In July 1885, a German authority on morphine addiction named Erlenmever launched the first of a series of attacks on cocaine as an addicting drug. In January 1886 Freud's friend Obersteiner, who had at first favored cocaine, reported that it produced severe mental disturbances similar to those seen in delirium tremens. Other attacks soon followed; and Freud himself was subjected to "grave reproaches." 12 Freud continued to praise cocaine as late as July 1887, when he published a final defense of the drug. But soon thereafter he discontinued all use of it both personally and professionally. Despite the fact that he had been taking cocaine periodically over a three-year span, he appears to have had no difficulty in stopping. His abandonment of cocaine was no doubt influenced in large part by the experience of Dr. von Fleischl-Marxow, the patient with whom Freud had shared his initial gram of cocaine.
* Among those who succeeded, as noted in Chapter 5, was the voting American surgeon, Dr. W. S. Halsted.
Fleischl suffered from multiple tumors of various peripheral nerves - netiromata-which gave him excruciating pain. He took morphine for this pain. At first Freud's cocaine proved a welcome substitute for the morphine-but Fleischl found it necessary to escalate his cocaine dose.
After a year on cocaine he was taking a full gram of it daily'-twenty times the dose Freud himself took from time to time. Indeed, Freud noted, Fleischl had spent $428 for a three-month supply of cocaine, an enormous sum in Vienna in those days. On June 8, 1885, Dr. Jones adds, "Freud wrote that the frightful doses had harmed Fleischl greatly and, although he kept sending Martha cocaine, he warned her against acquiring the habit." Thereafter Fleischl developed a full-fledged cocaine psychosis, "With white snakes creeping over his skin." 13 Freud and other physician friends mirsed Fleischl faithfully, often throughout the long nights, but to little avail. In June 1885 Freud estimated that Fleischl could live six more months at most; he actually survived for six more painwracked years.
Nor was Fleischl's experience unique; subsequent observations were to reveal that repeated use of large doses of cocaine produces a characteristic paranoid psychosis in all or almost all users, and that the tendency to overuse is widespread. A peculiar characteristic of this psychosis is "forinication"-the hallucination that ants, or insects, or (as in Fleischl's case) snakes, are crawling along the skin or under it.
Why was Freud, unlike his friend Fleischl, able to use modest doses of cocaine-30 to 50 milligrams injected under the skin-from time to time for three years without developing either a craving for the drug or a need to escalate the dose? At least three alternative explanations are available. Dr. Jones, a psychoanalyst, believed that it requires an "addictive personality" to establish an addiction; Lacking an addictive personality, he declares, Freud did not become a cocaine addict. (He did, however, become addicted to cigars, as described in Chapter 24.) The other two explanations are pharmacological.
One holds that there must be some biochemical difference-perhaps a difference in enzymes-between people like Freud who can take a particular addicting drug without becoming addicted and people like Fleischl who escalate the dose and become addicted. This hypothetical difference in enzymes may (or may not) be hereditary. The third explanation relates the addiction (or lack of it) to dosages and frequency of use. Because Freud took cocaine only occasionally, according to this theory, he had no need to escalate his dose. And because he did not escalate the dose, he did not become addicted. Some other explanation, of course, may ultimately prove true.
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The essay above was written in 1972 -- 13 years before Masson published the Complete Letters of Freud to Fliess in 1985...in which it can be seen that Freud's 'misadventures' with cocaine extended well beyond July of 1887 as falsely asserted by the author above...indeed, at least into 1895, meaning 11 years of cocaine usage, not 3 or 4 years as asserted by Jones above...And yet Jones, Sulloway (Freud: Biologist of The Mind, with a 1992 edition after The Complete Letters had come out), and others continute to say that Freud was never 'addicted' to cocaine...No...he simply enjoyed the sensation of fresh pus oozing out of his nose...(that was my sarcasm...)...see the letter of May 25th, 1895....'I discharged exceedingly ample amounts of pus and all the while felt splendid'...'(p. 130).
I have to go back and find the quote -- either in 1895 or 1895 -- where Freud wrote Fliess to tell him he had finally 'quit' taking cocaine (whether he actually did stop or not is another question)...
I will just leave you with this ending to a letter by Freud to Fliess on November 29th, 1895.
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I hope soon to hear many good things of you, wife, child, and sexuality through the nose.
Most cordial greetings.
Your
Sigm.
As the heart improves, many light migraines.
(The Complete Letters, p. 152)
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Migraines, heart attacks, heart arrythmia, depression, nasal infections....
Does anybody really still want to believe that -- even in 1895 -- Freud didn't have a serious cocaine problem?
April 21st was a bad day for Freud. April 21st, 1884 -- the day that Freud wrote his fiance, Martha, to tell her that he was buying cocaine for the first time (to study it 'medically') -- was also the same day in 1896 where Freud's potentially revolutionary paper, 'The Aetiology of Hysteria' espousing his historically famous or infamous (depending on your perspective) 'child sexual abuse theory' in relation to hysteria, was universally rejected by all his medical co-workers and superiors.
In my opinion -- the combination of this evening on April 21st, 1896 with the year earlier episode with Fliess and Emma Ekstein, was the beginning of an 'unethical slide downwards' for Freud. Because shortly afterwards, Freud's Seduction Theory would start to become 'buried' or 'repressed' or 'suppressed' (the latter was Masson's choice of words, 1984, 85, 92) under the weight of his advancing 'wishfulfillment', 'instinct-fantasy', 'screen memory', and 'dream' theories....
Wrote Freud afterwards -- before he quickly lost 'faith' in the theory that he believed was so 'revolutionary':
.............................................................................................
A lecture on the aetiology of hysteria at the Psychiatric Society met with an icy reception from the asses, and from Krafft-Ebing the strange comment: It sounds like a scientific fairy tale. And this after one has demonstrated to them a solution to a more than thousand-year-old problem, a caput Nili (source of the Nile)! They can go to hell, euphemisitically expressed. (The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, Masson, 1985, p. 184, the letter of April 26th, 1896.)
Freud may have been 'arrogant', 'rebellious' and 'anti-establishment' at the time that he initially wrote the letter above -- but it didn't last long. It would seem rather obvious to me (and presumably, Masson) that Freud basically 'succumbed to the attack of the pack of wolves' in the Psychiatry Society (my present day metaphor)...and started to 'ethically cave in' shortly thereafter as his 'patient workload' started to dry up....
The letter from Freud to Fliess of May 4th, 1896 gives us strong indications as to why.
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'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 equanimity. 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. As for Ekstein -- I am taking notes on her history so that I can send it to you -- so far I know only that she bled out of longing. (The Complete Letters, p. 186, the letter of May 4th, 1896.'
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I look at May 4th, 1896 as the day that Psychoanalysis became 'neurotic'.
Freud may have believed only a week prior that he had 'found the source of the Nile' but now 'two sources were converging into one' -- Freud was being 'blacklisted' and 'economically crushed' at the same time that he needed an 'excuse to wither away his medical guilt' relative to Emma Ekstein's close brush with death on the medical malpractice of Freud and Fliess.
In the 1880s, Freud can perhaps be excused for his 'experimenting' with cocaine and its potential 'medical properties' because no one knew about its 'addictive properties' and potential dangers until the late 1880s. Still, amidst 'bad reports' coming in on the hazards of cocaine, Freud pushed on, kept prescribing it, kept using it, and one of his patients and good friends, Fleischl, ended up dead in 1891, partly as a result of severe cocaine addiction. But Freud kept using it...almost definitely in my opinion through the whole Emma Ekstein ordeal -- in fact, cocaine was probably the main reason for Fliess and Freud's 'mutual obsession' with 'nasal sexuality' and 'nasal surgery' with poor Emma Ekstein getting into the unfortunate middle of these two 'hair-brained, off the deep end' theorists (my editorial comment).
Indeed, I would even speculate that there was something much more 'erotically -- and pathologocially -- primitive' going on in this whole Emma Ekstein fiasco. Something of a 'transference' nature. We all have 'transference games' that we play and some of these 'games' are not at all nice -- they can be mixed with sadism, cruelty, serial violence...depending on 'the source of the Nile' of the original 'transference memory' which I think I have found here.
Ernest Jones (The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1953, 1981, Vol., 1, p. 11) writes about an alleged Freudian 'screen memory'....I sniff out 'transference memories' from alleged 'screen memories':
'Freud never alluded in his writings to Emanuel's wife. Pauline, his niece, was on the other hand of some emotional significance. In the screen memory that Dr. Bernfeld unraveled, an amorous attachment to her is manifest, and beyond that an unconscious phantasy of her being raped by John and himself together. Freud himself related how he and his nephew used to treat the little girl cruelly, and one may assume that this included some erotic component -- whether manifest or not. The latter feature is the first sign that Freud's sexual constitution was not exclusively masculine after all, to 'hunt in couples' means sharing one's gratification with someone of one's own sex.'
Also, I have written previously on Freud's earliest childhood recollection -- when he was 3 or 4, he had 'invaded' the 'privacy' of his parents' master bedroom while they were 'getting it on'....Here again, you look at the 'structural, transference dynamics' of 'conscious early memory' -- what Freud would call a 'screen memory' and what I would call a 'transference memory', and you can quickly see that it involved '2 men and a woman' -- in this case, Freud Senior, little Siggy, his mother -- 'the sexual object' of his dad, and soon to be 'the sexual object' of little Siggy within the sexual confines of a 'menage a trois' involving a woman and another male -- and also, Freud's post 1896 'transference sublimated' invention of 'The Oedipal Complex'....
I will take my 'narcissistic bows' on this 'extended transference analysis' of Freud's character because no psychoanalyst has been here before me. Why? Because Freud scared them all away with his concept of 'screen memories' which I now view as a 'defense' on Freud's part to avoid 'the (unconcious, repressed?) analytic interpretation of a 'real transference memory' of lifelong ('serial', 'repetition compulsion') significance that is both being 'hidden' and 'alluded to' by the seemingly 'innocent' little screen (read 'transference') memory.
Anyone want to argue this point?
This latest development here is so excruciatingly important that I have just wiped out the rest of the essay to let you go back and 'chew on' the huge implications of what I just wrote here...which obviously need to be developed much further...
-- dgb, May 1st, 2011, updated, modified July 30th, 31st, Aug. 1st, 2011
-- David Gordon Bain
