Uncovering the Forgotten Freudians

Abstract

Contrary to popular legend that tags Sigmund and his early followers as staid devotees of psychoanalytic dogma, many of Freud's first disciples were bohemians and radicals who wanted to use psychoanalysis to reform social and sexual codes. recently uncovered correspondence of a noted early psychoanalyst indicates that these political either abandoned their views or communicated secretly among themselves after Nazism forced their exile to England and United States in 1930s. fate of political has been brought to light by a ream of letters written by Otto Fenichel, a respected analyst and prolific author, from 1934 until just before his death in 1945. Four years ago, Edith Gyomroi, one of six analysts who originally received Fenichel's correspondence, gave copies she had saved to her friend Randi Markowitz, a Los Angeles analyst. It was time, Gyomroi felt, that Freudians who had gone underground 50 years ago were heard from again. Why were letters kept secret for so long? Fenichel and company had been part of a large group of Freudians who flourished in Europe in early 1900s. In 1930s, however, Germany's Third Reich turned their world upside down. Analysts, especially Freudians who espoused socialism and reform of bourgeois society, left Europe for England, America and other safe harbors. But they threw their baggage overboard when they crossed ocean. Survival came first; controversy only risked deportation. Fenichel wrote his letters to keep spirit of psychoanalysis burning among a select few. considered his work top secret, telling recipients to destroy letters when they were through. Today, Fenichel's words endanger no one, yet they reveal a branch of early psychoanalysis that scholar Russell Jacoby says has been for most part forgotten. Jacoby, an English professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnabee, British Columbia, helped Markowitz organize her cache of correspondence for submission to a publisher. In a book based on Fenichel letters, Repression of Psychoanalysis (Basic Books, 1983), he describes many of Freud's early followers as radicals and maverick intellectuals bent on changing sexual and social codes of turn-of-the-century Europe. They were far from stereotype of passive analyst listening to problems of wealthy eurotics in a plush office. Even with almost 90 of Fenichel's letters in hand, Jacoby only partially reconstructs era of Freudians. was refused access to Archives in England and guesses that they contain more of Fenichel's 119 Rundbriefe, or round letters. only researcher to get into archives is Jeffrey Masson, former projects director of that institution. Masson was fired in 1981 when he claimed that crippled psychoanalysis by turning away from his original of neurosis. In broad terms, Freudian theory describes neurosis as an imbalance between human impulses and defenses that control and channel expression of th se impulses. According to seduction sexual abuse of children by adults is a primary cause of neurosis. Later held that reports of parental abuse were often universal sexual fantasies of his patients released during adulthood. This view is an important part of Oedipus complex. Masson, in his book Assault on Truth: Freuds Suppression of Seduction Theory (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984), claims that modern psychoanalysts follow Freud's lead and treat their patients' reports of childhood trauma as fantasies, ignoring reality of child abuse. Few scholars or analysts support Masson. Freud never totally gave up seduction theory, says George Pollock, director of for Psychoanalysis in Chicago. The reality of childhood seduction doesn't refute Freud's major contributions such as discovery of unconscious, his finding that dreams have meaning and his description of emotional transferences from a younger era to other life situations. Pollock agrees with Jacoby that Fenichel letters reveal far more about development of psychoanalysis than do Masson's assertions. A major break in field occurred with onset of Nazism and forced exile of many psychoanalysts, they say, not with Freud's downplaying of child abuse. Freudian refugees found status and affluence in their adopted homes, but, says Jacoby, the cultural and spirit of classical analysis vaporized. Freudians either gave up on their reformist ideas or carefully hid them in exile. cultural atmosphere had been far different in Vienna of early 1900s. Freud, who was himself a supporter of socialist causes, gathered around him both a core of disciples devoted to individual therapy and a number of others who wanted to promote psychoanalysis as a tool to fashion less restrictive social and sexual rules. skillfully played off both groups. He bent over backward to show that his findings were valid regardless of politics, says Pollock, especially because psychoanalysis was also attacked at time for being a predominantly Jewish psychology. In 1920s, Freud's theoretical and rebels left Vienna for Berlin. Their Berlin Institute was a hub for independ(Left) Otto Fenichel, at a 1938 meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia, poses with analysts Steff Bornstein (far left) and Charlotte Feibel. (Below) Fenichel confers with Anna (facing camera) and others.