Reconstructing Freud's prototype reconstructions

Abstract

Although at age 75, Freud asserted “deep within me there continues to be the happy child of Freiberg” (Příbor), his statement may now be regarded as an idealized version of his infancy and early childhood, devoid of trauma and stress. His reconstructions of his first three years of life, reported in his letters of October 1897 to Wilhelm Fliess, are subject to their own reconstruction. He had just repudiated seduction trauma as an exclusive etiology of psychopathology. Freud was then in the throes of an intense transference–countertransference relationship with Fliess, with reactivated unconscious conflict and developmental challenge. The reconstructions of his nursemaid, of his reactions to the birth and death of his first sibling, and of seeing his mother “nudam” require re-evaluation and revision in the context of contemporary psychoanalytic theory and new knowledge. While the specific reconstructions are of continuing interest, the methodology of analytic inquiry into early childhood and parenting transcends the inevitable limitations of the infancy of psychoanalysis. The concept of reconstruction potentiated the development of psychoanalytic thought, although with recurrent controversy, especially concerning retrospective meaning, psychic reality, and historical reality.