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- [00:00]
Afwa Hirsch
Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of Legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
- [00:08]
Peter Frankopan
A Listener Note this episode contains reference to suicide, sexual abuse, and details of traumatic events that some people might find distressing. Listener discretion is advised, and this is probably not for some younger listeners.
- [00:22]
Afwa Hirsch
Wondria.
- [00:28]
Peter Frankopan
Hello and welcome to the second episode in our series about Sigmund Freud. We left Freud having a breakthrough with the new science of psychoanalysis. Working with patients like Anna oh, he's made the groundbreaking discovery that ailments of the body can be treated with ideas. He's now doing a steady business in Vienna, analyzing patients, many from the city's aristocratic class. Not bad for the son of a poor Jewish wool merchant.
- [00:57]
Afwa Hirsch
But his positioning of sex as a central cause of neuroses has already caused a break with collaborator Joseph Breuer. So now he's working alone, trying to advance psychoanalysis. And he's about to delve into the world of dream analysis, trying to understand the hidden world of the subconscious. Will he succeed where others throughout history have failed?
- [01:30]
Peter Frankopan
From wandering Goal Hanger I'm Peter Frankopan.
- [01:33]
Afwa Hirsch
I'm AFWA Hirsch and this is Legacy.
- [01:36]
Peter Frankopan
The show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.
- [01:54]
Afwa Hirsch
This is Sigmund Freud. Episode 2AMeeting of Minds Thumbtack presents the ins and outs for caring for your home. Out indecision, overthinking, second guessing every choice you make in plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out beige on beige on beige in knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire, start caring for your home with confidence. Download thumbtack today.
- [02:39]
Peter Frankopan
So it's early winter, 1899. The 19th century is drawing to a close. But it's not the end of an era. In fact, in Europe, the belle epoch is at its height. It's a time of peace, economic prosperity and flourishing cultural innovations.
- [02:55]
Afwa Hirsch
And in Vienna, Freud is about to publish a book that will put his name on the map. Eventually, before his star can rise, his ideas need to find an audience. But perhaps even liberal Europe isn't ready for them.
- [03:10]
Peter Frankopan
If you've ever heard of any book by Sigmund Freud, it's going to be this one. It's the Interpretation of Dreams. It's published on November 4, 1899. Freud is 43. Only 600 copies are printed. But you know how long it takes to sell all of those afwa? Eight years.
- [03:27]
Afwa Hirsch
Do you know why? That's not what I want to hear. I'm 43 and I'm hoping that the book I'm currently writing is going to do for me what the Interpretation of Dreams did for Freud. But I'm not trying to wait eight years to reap.
- [03:39]
Peter Frankopan
You're going to sell 250. Your book launch. Come off it. Freud takes two years to sell 250 copies. But maybe the most notable thing about the book is it introduces the famous idea of the Oedipus Complex, which outlines how during the so called phallic phase, as Freud terms it, of between three and six years old, children experience unconscious sexual desires for their opposite sex parent and rivalry with their same sex parent.
- [04:07]
Afwa Hirsch
It's named the Oedipus Complex because of the tragedy by the famous Greek playwright Sophocles in which Oedipus, the king of Thebes, inadvertently kills his father and marries his mother. Okay, Peter, come on, we've got to get a little bit personal. Have you ever had fantasies of having sex with your mother and murdering your father?
- [04:27]
Peter Frankopan
I haven't, no. And in fact I'm slightly threatened by the idea that I might have done. No. How about you?
- [04:32]
Afwa Hirsch
Well, this is more a boy mother thing, but I have to say I've been reading about different writers relationships with Freud and I read this essay about this young man who kept creating art and giving it to his mother and he thought it was, for example, a road leading to a sunset only for his mother to look at it and just see like a throbbing ere penis. Sorry, this is maybe too graphic language for.
- [04:55]
Peter Frankopan
But I think it's one of those things that once it's been said like don't put your finger in the plug socket, that it's almost impossible not to, then think about it.
- [05:03]
Afwa Hirsch
Freud describes this book as the royal road to the knowledge of the unconscious in mental life. And although it's not widely read, criticism, as you would expect, is directed at how unscientific dream interpretation is and how easy it would be to influence patients with his own ideas.
- [05:21]
Peter Frankopan
But over time, it's fair to say Freud's ideas start to gain traction with intellectuals and with psychologists. And within 10 years it's become recognized as not just a foundational, but maybe the foundational text in psychology.
- [05:36]
Afwa Hirsch
Let's just talk a bit about how Freud came to write this seminal book, the Interpretation of Dreams. To understand that, we need to look back to 1895, when Freud completed his first dream analysis, a dream he referred to as Irma's injection. Analysing its symbolism and themes. Freud concluded it was about his wish for exoneration from mishandling a patient's treatment. And then he continued his dream analysis, recording his dreams in a daily journal.
- [06:06]
Peter Frankopan
I think that that process, what Freud was trying to do, was to try to deal with grief. So his father had died in 1896, and Freud was dealing, as is usually the case when a close relative dies, with unresolved emotions and memories from his childhood. Writing to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, he says, through some of the dark paths behind the official consciousness, the old man's death has moved me very much. I now have an uprooted feeling.
- [06:30]
Afwa Hirsch
By the summer of 1897, alongside his dream analysis, Freud begins a daily practice of self analysis. He's exploring and analyzing childhood memories, fantasies, and emotional reactions and looking to uncover the unconscious roots of his psychological conflicts and behaviors.
- [06:50]
Peter Frankopan
Now, if you listen to our first program in this series on Sigmund Freud, you'll know that we've enlisted some expert help with some of the finer points of Freud's work and his life in the shape of Professor Brett Carr. He's honorary director of research at the Freud Museum, a Freud scholar and a psychoanalyst himself. And he's the man to talk about the significance of this book. Brett the Interpretation of Dreams is now seen as one of the most important books of the whole of the 20th century, partly because of its interdisciplinary impact on psychology, culture, and art. But it didn't sell on release. Was the world just not ready?
- [07:27]
Professor Brett Carr
His book was first printed in the month of October 1899, and unsurprisingly, the publishers put the date 1900 on the front page to really indicate that this was the start of a new era. So 600 books in eight years was a very, very poor set of sales. And whether that was due to the fact that publishers were not very good at publicizing that, I cannot say. But there would have been something considered very, very unusual in the book because nobody had really written properly on the psychology of dreams. Dreams had, of course, been part of the human discourse for thousands of years. As you too will both know, ancient Greeks commented on dreams quite extensively, but did not link dreams to early childhood experiences, particularly early traumatic experiences and indeed, sexual experiences. And really, the main takeaway point from Freud's dream book of 1900 is that dreams represent the kinds of thoughts and wishes and desires and hatreds that we cannot bear to express or even think consciously during the daytime. So he was really being very bold in that book.
- [08:52]
Afwa Hirsch
Has that theory stood up, Brett? Is that still how dreams are regarded by modern psychology and psychoanalysis today.
- [08:59]
Professor Brett Carr
I think that the dream analysis is one of the areas of Freud's works that has perhaps been the least controversial because everybody knows that no two people dream in quite the same way. But dreams are really like watching Netflix. These are dramatic nighttime experiences that we all have as human beings. You know, most people would simply wake up and they might say to their spouse, oh, last night I dreamt that, you know, my father died or my uncle died, that sort of thing. And the spouse might just say, oh, don't worry, it was just a dream. That phrase is so frequently used in the English language. It was just a dream. But really the main conclusion of Freud's book is that a dream is not just a dream. It's a huge source of data about the hidden and conflictual aspects of our mind.
- [09:55]
Afwa Hirsch
We've talked about Dora's case and we've also talked about Anna. Oh, there are lots of famous cases in which Freud analyzes a patient, but the dream work represents him really digging into self analysis. Brett, I think it's hard sometimes for us now to appreciate the magnitude of that, but Ernest Jones writes of the uniqueness of that feat. Once it is done, it is done forever. For no one again can be the first to explore these depths. Can you explain what self analysis is and what its legacy for psychoanalysis has been?
- [10:28]
Professor Brett Carr
Specifically, Freud, as the planet's very first psychoanalyst, had nobody to psychoanalyze him, so he had to really analyze himself. And what he did is he tried to analyze his own dreams. He tried to recall as many of his childhood memories as possible. He even would look at his slips of the tongue. You know, why did I call that person John rather than James? You know, that's a mistake. What does that mean? So he was very, very attentive to himself in an investigative researching fashion. And he was also very brave and very generous because as a doctor at that time, he could so easily not have written about his own dreams or indeed the dreams of his children in his book on the interpretation of dreams. But he does share, most unusually, a lot of his own personal material, and that was a big source of data.
- [11:28]
Peter Frankopan
Freud may have been able to work through such extremes because of a very stable home life, even though the man of the house was busy coming up with a whole range of controversial sexual theories. His family was a standard Victorian affair, with Martha responsible for running the household and for raising the children.
- [11:46]
Afwa Hirsch
Freud's consulting room is in his house, so he spends most of his time surrounded by Family. They've got six children and Martha's sister Minna living with them, so it's not exactly all quiet contemplation. But his strict daily routine lets him use his time efficiently.
- [12:03]
Peter Frankopan
I don't trust people with a strict daily routine.
- [12:05]
Afwa Hirsch
Freud gets up at 7, something he finds hard because he never goes to bed before 1am Hard relate. He has a cold shower, is visited by his barber every day. Not afraid of a bit of male grooming, male self care for a beard trim and have his hair done. And then after a quick breakfast and a scan of the newspaper, he sees his first patient at 8am Each patient.
- [12:28]
Peter Frankopan
Gets precisely 55 minutes, allowing him a five minute interval between each one to clear his mind. Then at one o'clock, the whole family gathers for a big lunch. Freud loves his food and eats to the point of being distracted, leaving the family to carry the conversation without him. I'm not sure that that's a good thing. That sounds like he's busy chewing away and not really paying anybody any attention, lost in his own thoughts.
- [12:51]
Afwa Hirsch
It's not like lunch is 1ish and people saunter in. The family gathers at 1 on the dot. Everyone else has to sit down. And then when everyone else is there, Freud is summoned and he walks in and they sit down and start eating straight away. It's like clockwork. I mean, this is a man who likes a routine, Peter.
- [13:10]
Peter Frankopan
But that's fine. If you're in the military, there's a reason. But if it's your home, it's about control. And that has its own ironies about what it is that that patriarchal figure looks like. But then after lunch, he does the same thing every day from 1 until 3. He walks through the neighborhood, often replenishing his stock of cigars because he smokes, guess what? 20 a day.
- [13:30]
Afwa Hirsch
At 3pm he resumes consultations. Sometimes he sees patients up until 10pm and if he's not working late with a patient, he's either working in his study or occasionally spending time with his family.
- [13:42]
Peter Frankopan
And I wonder how his insights into the importance of childhood affected his own views about what he was doing with his own children and family.
- [13:48]
Afwa Hirsch
Freud's nephew Harry says that Freud was always on very friendly terms with his children. I mean, that sounds like something you would say about colleagues that you or bank manager.
- [13:57]
Peter Frankopan
Yes, I'm on friendly terms with my bank manager, not my kids. But not expansive, says Harry. Rather, he says he was always a bit formal and reserved. It rarely happened that he kissed any of them. I might almost Say really never. And even his mother, whom he loved very much, he only kissed perforce at parting. So that sounds pretty repressed and uptight to me.
- [14:17]
Afwa Hirsch
But he told his friend and biographer Ernest Jones, that he had a fount of tenderness within himself, which he didn't often parade. But in my family they know better.
- [14:28]
Peter Frankopan
Well, Freud's son Martin, who's named after Jean Martin Charcot, who we spoke about in the first episode, describes an incident at a skating rink where Martin was mistakenly blamed for causing an accident and and get slapped by an adult that left him humiliated back at home. Freud had helped Martin to process the shock, reducing a soul destroying tragedy into an unpleasant and meaningless trifle.
- [14:51]
Afwa Hirsch
Martin remembered this and he also said we were never ordered to do this or not to do that. We were never told not to ask questions. Replies and explanations to all sensible questions were always given by our parents who treated us as individuals, persons in our own right. It's not sounding like an effusively warm and cuddly environment, but one in which there's a lot of rational and dignified conversation going on. I'd say, Peter, I think a hug.
- [15:17]
Peter Frankopan
Might help in those situations. Or to be told it's not your fault or, you know, if you're really lucky, Freud goes and beats down the door the person who slapped his son and tells him off.
- [15:25]
Afwa Hirsch
Is that what you would do?
- [15:26]
Peter Frankopan
Well, it sounds very transactional, you know, it sounds very staid. And that's fine at the context of the time, but I think someone who is trying to pick out how your childhood experiences have deep impacts only later in life. It's kind of surprising not to see more interaction and insight with his children. What about his wife Afra? What do you make of his relationship with Martha?
- [15:47]
Afwa Hirsch
Whenever we, and we frequently do talk about these kind of grand men, I always go in search of the women in their life because I always suspect, and I'm usually right, that they are the unsung heroes of their work and their legacy. In this case. It's been so hard to find out who his wife Martha was. There are a couple of biographies written of her in French and German, one in English, but even they, her biographers, struggle to really get to the heart of who she was. She was supportive of her husband right up until the end of his life. She dutifully performed all of the household functions. She ran a tight ship in the home. Do you know, earlier we were talking about how when he courted her, he sent her letters in Latin and poems every single day. It's A really, to me heartbreaking story that once they were married, I don't think he sent her a single poem ever again. It was like the Courtship. He threw everything at her, it was total romance. And then once he had her, he just completely stopped making that kind of effort. I'm projecting, but I find that really hard.
- [16:54]
Peter Frankopan
But like you said, it's hard to get a sense of who Martha was. I mean you said she was supportive of Freud, which you know, I think she was broadly speaking. But Freud was more likely to discuss his cases with Martha's sister Minna and another French psychologist who alive at the same time said that Martha thought her husband's ideas were a form of pornography. So she wasn't completely enthused about the fact that he kept talking about penis envy and the Oedipus complex all the time. But even the Freud's son Martin recalls his mother and I'm not sure that your daughter would say this about you, Afwa, if she was giving a good eulogy. She was effective and thoughtful about the all important domestic details and travel arrangements, capable of reassuring self control.
- [17:33]
Afwa Hirsch
What are you saying about my motherhood, Peter?
- [17:36]
Peter Frankopan
You get a warmer write up. People would talk about your character, your qualities, your warmth, your kindness, your sense of humour and your award winning podcast. But Martha seems to be much more involved as a kind of keeper of logistics.
- [17:48]
Afwa Hirsch
She's like an amazing executive pa, you.
- [17:50]
Peter Frankopan
Know, that's exactly right.
- [17:51]
Afwa Hirsch
The details and the travel arrangements. One more thing I'd just like to add about her is that she grew up in a very religious home. Her grandfather was a famous rabbi and when they got married, Freud banned her from performing any of the Jewish rituals of observing the Sabbath, lighting the candles on Friday night and again talking about control. He didn't believe in religion, he was passionately atheist. But to stop your wife performing the rituals that mean something to her feels really oppressive. And she dutifully went along with this. But apparently they used to argue about that. It was one of the few things that they would kind of snipe at each other about. And later it when I suppose she'd kind of just been broken into accepting it, she would make jokes about how he had shut down any religious practice in the home. And after he died, and sorry for spoiler alert, but he does eventually the first thing she does is light her Shabbat candles. So I think that says a lot.
- [18:51]
Peter Frankopan
Freud certainly has a harmonious and stable home life with space to think and to write. And it's led to his first major work being published the problem is it's not being read. For now, he's a lone voice in what is at best an indifferent landscape.
- [19:06]
Afwa Hirsch
That's right, Peter, he's walking a fine line at this point. He's not got a receptive audience and he's got very innovative, controversial theories. If he doesn't get some kind of buy in from his peers, or ideally the wider public at large, he's in danger of being written off as somebody producing the ravings of a crackpot.
- [19:28]
Peter Frankopan
But luckily, Freud is just about to discover how persuasive the work he's created in isolation is. And he's going to see for the first time how powerful and influential his ideas can be.
- [20:01]
Afwa Hirsch
As Freud begins the early years of the 20th century, the interpretation of Dreams is his manifesto on his theories of the mind.
- [20:09]
Peter Frankopan
Despite its cool reception, Freud's ideas start to turn heads within the medical community. Several Viennese physicians get in touch, sharing their own ideas with Freud.
- [20:19]
Afwa Hirsch
And in 1902, Freud sends a postcard to several colleagues who've become interested in his works. He asks if they would afford me the great pleasure of coming to my house in the evening, 8:30pm after dinner, to discuss interesting topics in psychology and neuropathology.
- [20:36]
Peter Frankopan
I think that's quite a nice thing, isn't it? Sort of little working group to talk through so soon. Every Wednesday in Freud's waiting room, there are regular meetings that become christened the Psychological Wednesday Society.
- [20:48]
Afwa Hirsch
The meeting's made up of Freud and four of his early supporters, Max Kahan, Rudolf Reitler, Wilhelm Steckel and Alfred Adler. And during the meetings, papers are read aloud, opinions are read. It's a kind of psychoanalysis salon. There is an atmosphere where new theories can be discussed and it's almost what we would now call a safe space for people to criticise, sometimes with quite harsh language, these experimental thoughts and theories. And as Steckel revealed, a spark seemed to jump from one mind to the other and every evening was like a revelation.
- [21:24]
Peter Frankopan
So I suppose it's a bit like that joshing between Paul and John Lennon that we talked about on a previous series of Legacy, about being willing and able to listen to ideas whether they're good or bad, but to be okay about them being attacked, criticized and made better.
- [21:40]
Afwa Hirsch
I'm enough of a psychoanalysis nerd to wish I could be a fly on the wall in that room. I just think it would be so interesting to hear these early ideas being bounced around. Brett, I'd love to bring you in here.
- [21:53]
Professor Brett Carr
These four physicians were very interested In Freud's work, some of them began treating patients themselves. At least one of them had undergone analysis with Freud. So it was a very intimate group. But as the early 1900s, that first decade unfolded, more and more physicians in Vienna were attracted to Freud. Word had started to get out, and Freud allowed these men to join him. But what was really radical is that he not only welcomed fellow physician colleagues, he also was very, very keen to see that his work was influencing people from other professions. For instance, a man by the name of Max Graaf, who happened to have a journalist and a musicologist, not trained in healthcare at all. But he took a big, big interest in Freud's work through the publications. And Freud said, yes, Herr Graf, please come and join us. We want intelligent people like you. And then, shockingly, in the year 1910, a female doctor, there were very, very few females who had actually graduated from the medical school at that time. This young woman came to Freud and said, professor Freud, I'm really intrigued by your work. Can I come and join your psychoanalytical society? And Freud introduced this woman. Her name was Dr. Margaretta Hilferding. He introduced her to his group of male colleagues and many of them said, oh, no, no, no, we can't have her, she's a woman. But Freud absolutely overruled them. He said, this is my group. This woman is very intelligent and we want to really expand our psychoanalytical community. So Margaret Hilfadig became the first female psychoanalyst. And guess what? Not long thereafter, there were more women running the psychoanalytical world than men. So Freud, in my estimation, really helped to pioneer medical feminism.
- [23:54]
Peter Frankopan
I'm curious about collaboration within the sciences. There's no sort of obvious evidence that Freud was a great collaborator. Did he listen to other people? He didn't work with them, he didn't publish papers together with them. Was that unusual? Was Freud a one man band?
- [24:08]
Professor Brett Carr
He was in many respects a one man band, certainly as a writer, but he could not have undertaken his work if he had not really helped to cultivate a large community of trainee psychoanalysts who then became full psychoanalysts who ran training programs, membership organizations, founded and edited book series and journals. His first generation of disciples really did an enormous amount of work, and Freud was exceptionally collaborative with them. But I don't think many of them were really at his level of originality. So virtually all of his writing would have been done alone. And also, let's not forget, the art of psychoanalysis is very solo, focused work. We all learn from thousands of teachers and from thousands of studies. But at the end of the day, it's just one analyst and one patient in the room.
- [25:09]
Peter Frankopan
So Freud had enjoyed a remarkable period of productivity. In the following years, his work begins to draw reviews, but also criticism and traction. Between 1904 and 1906, he produces four major pieces of writing. The first is the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, which becomes widely known among the public. In this book, Freud examines deviations from the stereotypes of everyday conduct, from forgetting words to random movements and action. Things that today we call Freudian slips and suggest that they can reveal unconscious thoughts or desires or feelings. They're also known as a parapraxis. They result from the interplay between the conscious and unconscious minds.
- [25:53]
Afwa Hirsch
And the Psychopathology of Everyday Life also outlines how the interpretation of so called wrong actions, with the help of psychoanalysis, can actually offer a path to diagnosis and therapy, that there are clues in the things we do wrong or that are judged wrong by the society around us.
- [26:11]
Peter Frankopan
The second work that was published in 1905 is Jokes and Their Connection to the Unconscious. I mean, it's amazing the kinds of questions that he's being drawn into. And it argues that jokes often express repressed thoughts or desires or aggression, but in ways that are socially acceptable. I mean, it's quite unnerving. The things we find funny and amusing are things that we probably shouldn't be laughing at. And Freud argues that humor can act as a defense mechanism, transforming anxiety, fear, shyness or discomfort into something pleasurable or socially acceptable.
- [26:46]
Afwa Hirsch
Sorry to bring pub Freud back into the chat, but you know that expression when people say, you know what they say about truth in jest? I think the they in that is Freud. He was the one who introduced this idea that when you make a joke, there's this underlying truth about your unconscious and your repressed ideas. Pub.
- [27:05]
Peter Frankopan
Freud, I love him. But tell us about the third book in the sequence, afwa, because this is the one that makes him really famous.
- [27:10]
Afwa Hirsch
This is a more slim but more explosive volume called Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. And it cements Freud's reputation as being someone obsessed with sex. Three Essays announced his Libido theory, which outlines the idea that even young children experience pleasure driven behaviors. This was not an easy message for Victorian society who viewed sexuality as primarily reproductive and definitely confined to adulthood.
- [27:41]
Peter Frankopan
Freud definitely felt alone in suggesting the significance and ubiquity, even of a sexual drive in childhood. I mean, in the first essay of the book he identifies a diverse collection of erotic inclinations and endowments including hermaphroditism, which is where someone has both male and female organs. Homosexuality, paedophilia, sodomy, fetishism, exhibitionism, sadism, masochism, coprophilia and necrophilia. And you can see how that might have gone down in a much more prudish age.
- [28:15]
Afwa Hirsch
He's not endorsing these inclinations. He is just recognizing that they exist. He even describes them as disgusting perversions. But that doesn't help him escape controversy because he's still depicting them as natural manifestations of natural drives that humans have. And he isn't moralizing in the way that I think you would need to to meet the morality of the day. He says the omnipotence of love shows itself perhaps nowhere more strongly than in such aberrations as these.
- [28:46]
Peter Frankopan
And that centrality of sex, I think, is what makes Freud hugely controversial at the time and even today. The idea that sex underpins so much of society, how we think about the subconscious, unconscious and of the world around us. So Three Essays shocks the public, but it inspires more attacks on Freud that have already come earlier on in his career. So as early as 1892, Max Nordau had said that Freud's theories are a product of a degenerate mind obsessed with the basest instincts of humanity. His work is a danger to society, promoting immorality and undermining the foundations of civilization. And remember, even his own wife has described his work as being a form of pornography.
- [29:26]
Afwa Hirsch
I really think if someone accuses you of undermining the foundations of civilization, it's quite a compliment. As to the power of your theories, maybe that's just me.
- [29:36]
Peter Frankopan
I think that's just you. Afwa. I'm not sure it's meant either as.
- [29:39]
Afwa Hirsch
A compliment, but what power. The German doctor William Stern gives us the brilliant phrase mental masturbation, which is also not a compliment. It's how he alleges Freud has caused degenerate thinking with his, quote, pornographic stories about pure virgins betraying his own worldview, which is not in line with Freudian psychoanalysis.
- [30:04]
Peter Frankopan
Lots of leading voices are extremely dismissive about Freud. So one leading doctor at a neurology conference says that Freud's method is wrong in most cases, objectional in many, and superfluous in all. And so Freud is really under attack from all sides. Freud tries to hit back, but I think that the idea that he's a lone voice starts to become more and more clear to him.
- [30:27]
Afwa Hirsch
Remember Dora from the previous episode? To recap, Freud posited that her Hysteria stemmed from repressed sexual trauma and unconscious conflicts. And he interpreted her cough as a somatic symbol of imagined oral sex between her father and Frau K, linking it to penis envy and displaced desire.
- [30:47]
Peter Frankopan
When the case is published as Fragment of An Analysis of A Case of Hysteria, the same year as Three Essays, it only adds fuel to the fire. It's very hard to tell, Aphra. You know, I feel very uncomfortable about any kind of anonymized case studies being shared in the first place. Do you think that using Dora's experiences to hypothesize in public is ethically okay?
- [31:10]
Afwa Hirsch
Nope. It's only one of a number of things that are not ethically okay about this. I mean, here we have a vulnerable child who is sharing in confidence that she is experiencing the predatory advances of an adult. And instead of listening to her, protecting her, he's using her to advance his own theories and then using that as published work to build his reputation. I mean, everything about it seems really wrong.
- [31:40]
Peter Frankopan
But then on top of this, you've also got the question about whether this is actually science in the first place. I mean, Freud has a theory about what he thinks Dora's manifestation is, but it doesn't mean that he's right. It's one potential explanation of many. So it's maybe not a surprise that he gets attacked by other scientists.
- [31:57]
Afwa Hirsch
Again. I think you need to be a bit of an outlier and a bit of a radical free thinker to advance theories that are out of step with your peers. And there was lots about Victorian received wisdom that needed disrupting. So I think we have to give Freud that. But the way he's working seems very egotistical.
- [32:18]
Peter Frankopan
That's true. But despite all the controversy, Freud finally hits his stride. His output goes into overdrive, and he's found a really enthusiastic group of supporters to share his ideas with who are championing him.
- [32:31]
Afwa Hirsch
But he's now a big fish in a small Viennese pond, and for his work to be disseminated widely, psychoanalysis needs to go international. Plus, Freud is about to meet his match. A young Swiss doctor who will champion and then challenge him in ways he could never anticipate.
- [33:10]
Peter Frankopan
In 1906, Freud's friends gather to celebrate his 50th birthday. They present him with a gift, a medallion featuring a scene from the Story of Oedipus. Under an engraving of Oedipus answering the Sphinx's riddle is the quote. Who divined the famed riddle and was a man most mighty? Freud is visibly shocked at receiving the present and asks whose idea it was. He explains that as a student at the University of Vienna, he often daydreamed. His bust would one day be displayed among those of other famous professors, and it was this same quote that he'd imagined alongside it.
- [33:46]
Afwa Hirsch
After four years, the gift attests to the high esteem his followers have for him. The Wednesday Psychological Society, that started with just a few people in his front room has grown to 17 members and is made up of both physicians and laymen also interested in these ideas. Freud is now fielding interest from psychoanalysts in Germany, Hungary, Switzerland and the far remote, exotic wilds of England.
- [34:11]
Peter Frankopan
In 1906, Freud had begun corresponding with Swiss doctor Carl Jung, who had read the Interpretation of Dreams while working at Zurich's Burkhodsley Sanatorium. To open their correspondence, Jung had sent Freud a copy of Diagnostic Association Studies, which he had edited and contained a paper of his own supporting Freud's theory of free association. Publicly, he says people should not judge Freud, else one acts like those famous men of science who disdained to look through Galileo's telescopes. That's quite a good historical parallel to say these ideas, you need to allow them time to settle.
- [34:45]
Afwa Hirsch
And Freud responds by sending Jung a copy of his own just published collection of papers on the theory of neuroses. And that's the beginning of a year of correspondence in which they discuss the role of sexuality in the genesis of neuroses and exchange off prints and books discussing individual cases that have intrigued them.
- [35:03]
Peter Frankopan
But then, eventually, on February 27, 1907, Jung visits Freud in person at his home in Vienna, and the two men talk nonstop for 13 hours.
- [35:14]
Afwa Hirsch
This is a bit like those online dating scenarios where people are long distance and then finally meet in person. The stakes feel so high. Freud quickly feels that his investment in this relationship is vindicated and sees Jung as his successor, referring to him as his son and heir. And his enthusiasm is completely reciprocated, with Jung gushing, this undeserved gift of your friendship signifies for me a certain high point in my life which I cannot celebrate with noisy words.
- [35:46]
Peter Frankopan
And Jung is instrumental in helping organise the first International Psychoanalytic Congress in 1908, held in Salzburg. Sir Brett, tell us about how this worked. Jung comes to the Freud home. He sits down to eat with the family, Martin Freud later says of the 13 hour meeting. Jung never made the slightest attempt to make polite conversation with mother or with us children, but pursued the debate, which had been interrupted by the call to dinner. Jung on these occasions did all the talking and father with unconcealed delight did all the listening.
- [36:17]
Professor Brett Carr
It does not surprise me that several Hollywood films have been made featuring the character of Sigmund Freud and the character of Carl Gustav Jung. These two men had a very, very complicated relationship, as you will appreciate. When they first met. Jung was a young psychiatrist nearly 20 years Freud's junior. I think he felt very honored to become Freud's disciple, Freud's top mentee during the early 1910s. But he also wanted to become very much a superstar in his own right. And in fact he did. No two historians have quite the same assessment of the Freud Jung relationship. I think that Freud was utterly thrilled when Jung took an interest for several reasons. First of all, Jung was a very smart, very well educated person. He was the disciple of a very famous Swiss psychiatrist called Professor Eugen Bleuler, who invented the term, what we now know as schizophrenia in the English language. So Freud liked the fact that Jung came from a famous psychiatric background. He liked the fact that Jung was not Jewish because most of his Viennese colleagues were of Jewish origin. And Freud really wanted to diversify and internationalize his community. So to have a Christian Swiss person rather than Jewish Viennese people, that was a really big achievement.
- [37:51]
Peter Frankopan
What about, Brett, the concept, the idea that sort of the relationship between Freud and Jung was a sort of father son relationship and then looks like a form of Oedipal complex in its own right.
- [38:02]
Professor Brett Carr
That is a very astute observation, Peter. I think that there was potentially a big father son component to that. I think it's very, very challenging to really get to the bottom of what went on between those two men. They were both superstars, they were both very intelligent, very potent men. I do think that it's highly possible that there was an immense amount of rivalry. Many of the Jungian ideas over the next several decades would go in different directions. For instance, Jung and Freud had very different views about spirituality, for example, about religion, for example. Jung was not as passionate about the impact of sexuality as Freud was. But something to really talk about is that Jung actually had a sexual affair with one of his own patients. He then went on to have a sexual affair with another one of his own patients. And Sigmund Freud knew about it and he lost all respect for Jung when those events had unfolded. He really thought that was really beyond disgusting for a male medical doctor to do that with a female patient. And I think that was a big, big part of the background to their rivalry, their competition, and any growing theoretical differences.
- [39:30]
Afwa Hirsch
Though their friendship is sincere, pretty early on, the cracks appear in this relationship, they are deviating on certain key points of theory, mainly Jung doubting whether psychoanalysis is as effective as Freud claims. That's really going to the root of the theory Freud has staked his entire professional identity on, and the method.
- [39:54]
Peter Frankopan
And also the idea that Jung pushes back against is the idea that Freud attributes too much importance to sexual trauma of youth. And so, although he reassures Freud that he'll never abandon a piece of your theory that's essential to me, there starts to become a competitive rivalry. And to the point where Jung is starting to question whether Freud has been put on too much of a pedestal by himself, if no one else.
- [40:17]
Afwa Hirsch
Jung's interests certainly do draw attention. He's interested in precognition and parapsychology, which, if anyone has seen the masterpiece of theoretical psychoanalysis, the movie Ghostbusters, will know it's the study of mental phenomena which are excluded from or explicable by orthodox scientific psychology. The supernatural, the paranormal, the things that we can't explain.
- [40:45]
Peter Frankopan
And on a visit to Vienna in 1909, Jung asks Freud for his opinion about parapsychology. And Freud begins dismissing it as nonsense. But then there's a loud cracking sound from the bookcase that stops them in their tracks.
- [40:59]
Afwa Hirsch
Jung tells Freud he knew it was going to happen. He calls it an example of a catalytic exteriorization phenomenon whereby the psyche can externalize or make materially real psychic content.
- [41:13]
Peter Frankopan
Freud responds by calling the idea sheer bosh. I think there's a different way. We call that today bullshit. But Jung persists and predicts it will happen again. And moments later, the bookcase makes another sound.
- [41:26]
Afwa Hirsch
A few days later, Freud writes to Jung saying, my credulity, or at least my readiness to believe, vanished along with the spell of your personal presence. Harsh, that is. He might have been open to believing it at the time, but the sheen of both Jung's ideas and Jung the man is starting to wear off.
- [41:47]
Peter Frankopan
So there's clearly an imbalance of power in the dynamic, with Freud being the undisputed authority on psychoanalysis. But does this drive Jung the mentee, to challenge the mentor?
- [41:58]
Afwa Hirsch
For now, Freud and Jung are still on a good footing, and they're about to share an adventure that will bring their movement international recognition. Because America comes calling, Peter.
- [42:09]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah, that's right. And in December 1908, Freud receives an invitation from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, to deliver a series of lectures to celebrate the 20th year since its foundation. And he initially feels unable to accept because he's worried that Americans would ostracize him once they discovered the sexual bedrock of our psychology.
- [42:30]
Afwa Hirsch
But on 21 August 1909, he set sail to New York with fellow psychoanalysts Chardor Ferenci, Ernest Jones and his new disciple, Carl Jung, who is also set to give us lectures.
- [42:42]
Peter Frankopan
On the boat, Freud sees a cabin steward reading the Psychology of Everyday Life, his first indication that he might be becoming famous.
- [42:50]
Afwa Hirsch
Love that feeling, Peter, come on, you get on the tube and they're all reading the Silk Rose.
- [42:55]
Peter Frankopan
Whole carriage transformed everybody with a copy of British. That's it, you know how it feels. Fame.
- [43:01]
Afwa Hirsch
It does feel good. In Worcester, Freud gives five lectures in German over five evenings, which is a tall order because the audience are not understanding him in German, it's having to be translated.
- [43:13]
Peter Frankopan
But Freud is becoming famous. I mean, he gets an honorary doctorate from Clark. He's seen now as being part of an international movement. There's recognition that what Freud is thinking and writing and talking about are going to be maybe not accepted, but that they're mainstream now.
- [43:29]
Afwa Hirsch
Well, first of all, the fact of him being invited to the US to give these lectures is definitely a vote of confidence in his favour. In an atmosphere in Europe where there's all this critique and questioning about the empirical basis of his work, it is being taken seriously, it's traveling, it's being read by people outside the professional world of science or psychology.
- [43:50]
Peter Frankopan
Well, the dean of the University of Toronto announces that an ordinary reader would gather that Freud advocates free love, removal of all restraints and a relapse into savagery. And I don't think any of those are particularly positive things. But Freud himself reacts in a different way. He says that when I was in Europe I felt like I was someone who'd been excommunicated. But here in the States I saw myself received by the best as an equal. It was like the realization of an incredible daydream as I stepped up to the lectern in Worcester.
- [44:19]
Afwa Hirsch
We've had other figures who are seen as controversial or out of step in Europe, but find a much more open minded audience in America and the other way around. It's almost like everyone prefers someone else's radical. And in the space of a decade, Freud's taken ideas formulated in isolation and started to project them onto the world stage. I mean, Peter, he's nothing if not ambitious and confident in the power of his thinking and success.
- [44:47]
Peter Frankopan
You know, it's a vindication not just of his ideas, but there are all the other trappings that come with it. The confidence of feeling that your ideas are being talked about by other people. So the trip to America marks a real high for Freud, who's painstakingly built up his reputation and that of a field of psychoanalysis for the last decade. But it remains to be seen whether his ideas can withstand the scrutiny of international recognition.
- [45:10]
Afwa Hirsch
That's the least of his worries for now, however, because with pressure from within the movement building, his relationship with his prodigy Carl Jung is beginning to falter, and forces way beyond his control are contriving to plunge the world into a catastrophic war, one that will have profound consequences for his life and work. That's next time on Legacy Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey from.
- [46:10]
Peter Frankopan
Wondery and goal hanger. This is the second episode in our series on Sigmund Freud.
- [46:15]
Afwa Hirsch
We've used many sources for this series including A Life for Our Time by Peter Gay and and the Life and Work of Sigmund Freud by Ernest Jones. Legacy is hosted by me, Afwa Hersh.
- [46:27]
Peter Frankopan
And me, Peter Frankapen. For Goal Hanger. Our series producers are Jane Morgan and Anoushka Lewis. Jack McKay is Associate Producer. Our production managers are Izzy Reid and Alex Hack Roberts. The executive producers are Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.
- [46:43]
Afwa Hirsch
This series of Legacy is sound engineered and designed by Will Farmer.
- [46:48]
Peter Frankopan
Music supervision is Scott Velasquez for Frit? N Sink.
- [46:51]
Afwa Hirsch
Our producer for Wondery is Emanuela Coinati Francis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley.
- [46:57]
Peter Frankopan
Executive producers for Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louie.