FREUD AND JUNG: THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
Har Harold P B lum, lum , New N ew Y ork ork Today there is a resurgence of interest in the history of psychoanalysis, facilitated and inspired by new books and the release of historical documents by The Sigmund Freud Archives and other sources and discoveries. It is now possible to further reconstruct the historical events; the psychodynamics of the interrelationships of Freud and Jung; and the subseq subsequen uentt impac impactt of their their joint joint intern internati ationa onall journe journey y to Ameri America. ca. Contra Contrary ry to Freud' Freud'ss expect expectati ations ons,, psycho psychoana analys lysis is would would gradua graduall lly y have have a major major influe influence nce not only only upon upon American psychiatry and psychology, but also upon American intellectual and cultural life. Freud probably would have been astounded that the Archives conserving his papers and letters were at the United States Library of Congress. Freud, Jung, and Ferenczi arrived on the steamer Geor George W ashingto shington n in New York on 29 August 1909 for a fateful stay of approximately for f orty ty days. Freud had invited Ferenczi, his close new friend and colleague, to accompany him and Jung to America. All three had booked passage in first class accommodations. Freud and Jung had been invited by G. Stanley Hall to receive honorary degrees (Doctor of Laws) on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Clark University. Ernest Jones had arrived at the end of the week in New York and accompanied Freud, Jung, and Ferenczi to Clark University in Worce Worceste ster, r, Massa Massachu chuset setts ts (Rose (Rosenzw nzweig eig 1992). 1992). We are in a positi position on to go beyond beyond the comments of Freud and Jung about their relationship, its peak after the American visit, the founding of the IPA, and the decline and dissolution of their t heir relationship. When Freud wrote his brief autobiography in 1925, he gave a distilled account of his trip where he spent a week giving lectures. What What was rather amazing for its day was that Stanley Hall, as President of Clark University, had already introduced psychoanalytic ideas into course coursess at the Univ Univers ersity ity,, was interest interested ed and had writt written en on the evolu evolutio tion n of human human sexuality sexuality,, and had the vision to honor Freud with the invitatio invitation. n. Freud (1925) (1925) wrote wrote of the visit after describing Hall as a `king maker.'
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HAROLD P. BLUM, MD is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Training Analyst, New York York Univ Univers ersity ity,, and Exec Executi utive ve Direc Director tor,, The The Sigm Sigmund und Freud Freud Archi Archive ves. s. Addre Address ss for correspondence: 23 The Hemlocks, Roslyn Estates, NY 11576, USA.
Psychoanalysis and History 1(1), 1998 © The author
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Another event of this time which made a lasting impression on me was a meeting with William James... At that time I was only fifty-three. I felt young and healthy, and my short visit to the New World encouraged my self-respect in every way. In Europe I felt as though I was despised; but over there I found myself received by the foremost men as an equal. As I stepped on to the platform at Worcester to deliver my `Five Lectures on Analysis,' it seemed like the realization of some incredible daydream: psychoanalysis was no longer a product of delusion, it had become a valuable part of reality'. (p. 125) The cast of characters for honorary degrees included twenty-seven other invited lecturers, among them the Nobel Prize winning physicists A. Michelson and E. Rutherford. The historical moment of Freud's invitation and visit to the United States was remarkably free of the academic animosity, social prejudice, and anti-Semitism to which he had been so often exposed in Europe. Freud was received at Clark University in the best traditions of American academic freedom. Freud dissented from Jung's suggestion that he should focus his Clark lectures entirely on dreams. This would be too narrow a focus, an experience too distant from everyday life for introducing psychoanalysis to an uninitiated audience. `It seemed almost scandalous that in a country so devoted to practical goals I should present myself to you as a "dream interpreter" before you had a chance to know what significance this ancient and despised art can claim' (Rosenzweig 1992, p. 419). These lectures were to be the first systematic explication of psychoanalytic theory meant for a popular audience. The lectures were sketched out with Ferenczi in half-hour walks prior to the lecture. In his usual form, Freud delivered the lectures rather extemporaneously in German. His conversational style was elegantly lucid and engaging. However, he was also misunderstood by some as an advocate of social and sexual liberation, and an environmentalist. Though subject to popular distortion, the lectures actually provided a marvelous introduction to the basic concepts of psychoanalysis, richly illustrated with vivid imagery and striking analogy. The Clark Lectures were an extraordinary event in intellectual and psychoanalytic history. By inviting Freud to America at an historic moment, with munificent honorarium, and the offer of an honorary degree, Hall made possible these first introductory lectures in psychoanalysis. After Freud's visit to the United States, The American Psychoanalytic Association was founded 9 May 1911, with James J. Putnam, President and Ernest Jones, Secretary. Freud's visit quickly bore fruit and these early public lectures were to become internationally influential, the predecessors of the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Freud 1916). The Clark Lectures were given Tuesday, 7 September through Saturday, I1 September 1909. Freud (1909) outlined the case of Breuer's patient, Anna 0., and described the discovery of the `talking cure' and the tracing of symptoms to earlier traumatic experiences. Freud discussed psychic conflict and the mechanism of repression leading to symptom formation. Dreams then offered the royal road to the understanding of unconscious conflict. Freud sketched the
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relation between dreams, myths, and legends, and outlined what would later be designated as the Oedipus complex. He discussed the role of the artist in transforming forbidden fantasy into sublimated forms that are culturally acceptable. Finally, he also explained the importance of transference analysis in treatment, resolving underlying childhood conflicts. Jung then appeared to be an enthusiastic adherent of Freud's theories. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Freud was mainly interested in the Greek antiquities. Freud saw his first movie and had his personal reactions to the American scene. He developed indigestion, a gastrointestinal disturbance, and all three travelling companions agreed to take turns fasting for a day. Freud was apparently also affected by a prostate or bladder condition. Jung claimed that he had an episode of urinary incontinence, with fears of recurrence (Rosenzweig 1992). As Freud had already had indications from Jung and Sabina Spielrein, and as Freud was to further learn, Jung's reliability and ethics left much to be desired and questioned. Prior to his death, Jung admitted having lied to Freud about dream associations concerning death wishes to Freud (Jung 1973, 1975). Freud's wish for an enthusiastic response and reception of his ideas in America was fulfilled. Jung described Freud as in `seventh heaven.' Freud's antagonism to America appears all the more paradoxical, especially since Freud described the Clark ceremonies as the first official recognition of psychoanalysis. Old frustrations and disappointments appeared to have been activated, projected, and displaced onto America. Citing Beard, Freud (1908) referred to neurasthenia as `the American disease.' The ill effects of urban life were more pronounced in America, `with its unbridled pursuit of money and possessions' (p. 184). His antagonism to America preceded his trip, but deepened afterward. The friendly USA became suspiciously viewed as a possible adversary of psychoanalysis. Following upon the physical complaints, he even told Jones that he thought his handwriting had deteriorated after the visit to the United States. He also stated, `America is a mistake; a gigantic mistake, it is true, but nonetheless, a mistake' (Jones 1955, Vol. II, p. 60). Freud had thought of going to America after he married if he did not succeed in his practice. He had also fantasied settling in England in the footsteps of his half brothers. An American drug company was the source of cocaine and thus a possible source of distress for Freud. Coca-cola had origins in a cocaine beverage. Freud was ambivalent toward his American relatives - his oldest sister, Anna, and her husband, Eli Bernays, who was also the brother of Freud's wife, Martha. There had been discord between Freud and Eli Bernays related to money and Martha. His complaint that Americans didn't even understand each other could have readily been applied to the Viennese and to the first psychoanalysts. His hostility to Vienna, to European academic medicine and psychology, and his incipient hostility to Jung were partially displaced onto America. This denigration of America was similar in character to the then common antisemitic social stereotyping of Jews. Later, America was disparaged for not supporting
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lay analysis and for covert anti-Semitism (Gay 1988). America did not have the great cultural history of Europe, and for Freud, it was 'Dollaria' and a mercenary, technological society. Freud's visit had repercussions on the history and development of psychoanalysis, and psychoanalysis would flourish in America. The aftermath of the trip and the founding of the IPA was evident in Freud's correspondence and scientific papers, and the historically important, highly ambivalent, idealized love and then hate of Jung. Freud's ambivalent reaction to America resulted in a splitting of representations between denigrated America and idealized Jung. He resented the recognition Jung and other dissidents gained in America. His idealized relationship with Jung continued a series of idealizations of various mentors and models, e.g., Breuer, Fliess, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Moses, etc. The heroes inspiring Freud's admiration and esteem did not necessarily resemble each other but all were endowed with greatness, and the mythical figures were cultural ideals. Jung was encountered as chronologically a son of the next generation, approximately twenty years younger than Freud. He was tall, blond, handsome, and appeared on the scene as a charismatic, cultivated, Swiss, Christian. He had attained international recognition as a precocious psychologist at age thirty-four receiving an honorary degree at Clark University. He had first sought to meet Freud in 1907, and then the two men became immediately engaged in extensive discussion, talking for twelve hours nonstop. Freud was especially taken with his being a non-Jewish supporter and advocate of his ideas, presumably an ideal spokesperson for psychoanalysis. Prior to the formation of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society in 1908, Klein (1981) noted that every one of Freud's adherents was a Jew until the arrival of Jung and Binswanger in 1907. The initial reaction of Freud and Jung to each other might be described as narcissistic mirroring or merger in self-psychological terms (Homans 1974). In classical terms, Jung was both an ideal self and idealized object, a narcissistic object. Freud and Jung were also an idealized oedipal father and son for each other. A correspondence developed with the exchange of intimate thoughts, feelings, references to family and friends, hopes, fears, and dreams. The early analysts were dazzled by analytic discoveries and their confirmation and elaboration in the excitement of pioneer, analytic work. They analyzed each other's correspondence, parapraxes, and dreams, with little understanding of the complexities of combining personal and analytic relationships. Freud and the pioneers disregarded his own initial understanding of such contraindication to treatment, 'It will be readily understood that a mixed relationship (such as between friends...) may be a source of many disturbed feelings in a physician and particularly in a psychotherapist. While the physician's personal interest is greater, his authority is less' (1900, p. 106). On the trip to America aboard ship, Freud, Jung, and Ferenczi analyzed each other's dreams, inviting 'mutual analysis' but without intrinsic analytic safeguards and with withholding of associations. These were the 'heroic days of psychoanalysis' when ideas of
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analytic alliance, neutrality, and countertransference were only incipient concepts. Wild analysis (Freud 1910) was both proscribed and practiced. Returning from America across the Atlantic, Jung claimed that Freud reported a dream and that Freud subsequently refused to provide associations about his private life. Jung claimed that Freud stated that he could not risk his authority. According to Jung, one of Freud's dreams was about a triangle concerning Freud, his wife, and his wife's sister. Jung reported his own more recent dream of a house with two skulls in the sub-basement. Jung stated that Freud interpreted the dream to mean that there were two people Jung wanted dead and buried (Jung 1973). The two skulls in the sub-basement also suggest reciprocal unconscious influence and simultaneous resistance to analytic efforts. Freud's first fainting episode in Jung's presence occurred in Bremen, Germany during lunch just prior to embarking for America. He had stated that he had a sleepless night and perhaps drank too much wine or too quickly. Jung reported that Freud did not merely have a feeling of faintness but had fainted. Jung stated that he carried Freud to a couch and attributed the fainting to luncheon conversation about corpses preserved in bogs near Bremen. On a visit to a Cathedral, Freud had also explained to Jung and Ferenczi that a workman who had accidentally fallen from the roof had been buried like a mummy in the basement of the Cathedral. Jung believed Freud had interpreted this story to imply that Jung had death wishes toward him. Three years later, Freud again experienced a fainting spell during lunch with Jung in Munich. Freud later reproached Jung and Jung's friend, Riklin, for not citing Freud's name in their analytic publications. Freud interpreted this behavior as representing his being replaced and effaced, a parricidal fantasy derivative. Connecting Jung with Fliess and Adler, Freud analyzed his own reactions. He suggested the eruption of unruly homosexual conflict and also attributed his fainting to the infantile experience of the death of his brother, Julius. It should be noted here that Freud initially interpreted a dream of Jung when they first met ( March 1907) as indicating Jung's unconscious wish to dethrone and replace him! What is most remarkable is the immediate and intense idealization simultaneous with Freud's recognition of Jung's hostility and rivalry. The idealization of Jung intensified to its peak around their visit to America. Freud's mode of address to Jung warmed with admiration, shifting from 'Dear Colleague,' to 'Dear Friend,' and 'Dear Friend and Heir' (15 October 1908). Writing to Jung on 16 April 1909, he referred to Jung as his son and his ' crown prince.' He stated 'If I am Moses, then you are Joshua' indicating that he regarded Jung, rather than himself, as the singular person, supremely qualified to lead psychoanalysis into the future and realize its potential. Jung presumably would save psychoanalysis from being considered a Jewish science or a Jewish national affair. With Jung at the helm, psychoanalytic ideas would supposedly be more acceptable to the non-Jewish, prejudiced, traditionalist populace.
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At the height of his idealization of Jung in 1910, while fearing Jung's ambitious reciprocal wish to succeed and replace him, Freud appeared to renounce his own position in favor of his `adopted' son. Having stated to Jung that he was afraid of losing his authority, he proceeded to delegate his authority to Jung. While worried that his relationship would recapitulate his relationship to Fliess, he proceeded to seemingly disregard his own ambivalence, misgivings, and forewarnings concerning Jung. This view differs from those Freud scholars who tended to regard Freud's relationship to Jung as relatively unambivalent. Freud's idealization of Jung and his identification with him as an idealized object and aggrandized, wishful selfimage had defensive dimensions as do all idealizations. Jung's handsome, dignified appearance, aryan charisma, coupled with an affluent Christian wife, with whom Jung felt free to cross social and marital boundaries, ambivalently appealed to Freud. Jung was an aryan knight in shining armor, a star advocate of psychoanalysis. Jung, on his side, was also covertly hostile behind his conscious idealization and appreciation of Freud's intellectual stature. Jung may have felt exploited as a Christian champion of psychoanalysis, and Freud resented Jung's anti-Semitic arrogance. The break between Freud and Jung was based upon underlying, bilateral conflict and antagonism, though inevitably it was preceded by mutual respect, admiration, friendship, and confidence (Donn 1988). That Jung was 'adopted' when Freud's biological sons were adolescents further suggests the revival of family romance conflict and ambivalence. The overestimation of Jung, his 'son and heir,' and `crown prince' probably aroused magical expectations in Jung that couldn't be fulfilled. Jung was not only a friend, student, and colleague, but looked to Freud as a confessor and therapist. Jung's theoretical divergence followed after his seeming acceptance of the ideas and leadership of the psychoanalytic movement which Freud conferred. In what today seems such an extraordinary and bewildering decision, Freud proposed the founding of the International Psychoanalytical Association and that Jung should be its President for life. He imagined that Jung would reign over psychoanalysis as an absolute monarch with virtually dictatorial powers. Jung would not only be the perennial president, but the editor of its most important journals and would chair the future international congresses. Jung was to be the undisputed guardian and leader of psychoanalysis with power and influence over the psychoanalytic literature as well as over its organization and members. This proposition was only bound to exacerbate the hidden but rising tensions among Freud and Jung and the adherents of the fledgling psychoanalytic movement. Jung was to be invested with narcissistic omnipotence. The IPA was founded six months after the Freud/Jung visit to the USA, during the Second International Psychoanalytical Congress in Nuremberg, Germany, 30 March 1910. Freud was greatly heartened by international recognition, his honorary Doctorate, and increasing public interest in psychoanalysis. Proud, courageous, and confident about his discoveries, he was, nevertheless, insecure about the future. He was dependent upon Jung and upon his Jewish colleagues
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to further the `cause,' growing closer to Abraham, Ferenczi, and Jones when his relationship to Jung was threatened (Paskauskas 1988). The move to have Jung as President for Life and the IPA administration to be in Zurich, Switzerland was pronounced and promoted by Ferenczi but instigated by Freud. The secret plan for the IPA was not announced in advance of the meeting. The Viennese analysts were incensed, not only because of the prior criticism by Ferenczi, noted by Limentani (1996), but also because of Jung's position and feeling rejected by Freud. Jung and the Zurich School of Bleuler were given higher analytic and social status. Some years later Wittels (1924) provided his own account of the tempest accompanying the birth of the IPA. On the afternoon of this memorable day, the Viennese analysts had a private meeting in the Grand Hotel at Nuremberg to discuss the outrageous situation. Of a sudden, Freud, who had not been invited to attend, put in an appearance. He said: `Most of you are Jews, and therefore incompetent to win friends for the new teaching. Jews must be content with the modest role of preparing the ground. It is absolutely essential that I should form ties in the world of general science. I am getting on in years, and am weary of being perpetually attacked. We are all in danger.' Seizing his coat by the lapels, he said: 'They won't even leave me a coat to my back. The Swiss will save us - will save me, and all of you as well.' Although Ferenczi interpreted the unconscious family dynamics of group process in which the President was a parent and the membership were children, he had claimed that the father would not enjoy dogmatic authority. The formulation that Presidential pronouncements would be subject to thoroughgoing criticism was contradicted by the proposed power to be granted to Jung. He could censor, censure, and even expel any member who violated the new rules. The ensuing uproar was followed by a far more democratic compromise. Jung was to be President for only two years. Adler was given the Presidency of the Vienna Society, and the effort to control the quality of scientific publications was settled with the avoidance of a Presidential veto and censorship. Considerable progress was made toward the establishment of a viable international psychoanalytic organization, though with much difficulty, labor pains, and regrets. Bleuler and others refused to join, and Jung reported to Freud about the IPA on 6 August 1910. 'It seems to give people the horrors.' Freud replied, on 10 August 1910. I believe I went ahead too fast. I overestimated the public's understanding of the significance of psychoanalysis. I shouldn't have been in such a hurry about founding the I.A. [IPA]. My impatience to see you in the right place and my chafing under the pressure of my own responsibility had something to do with it. To tell the truth we should have done nothing at all. As it is, the first months of your reign, my dear son and successor, have not turned out brilliantly. Jung's trip to America (for consultation with a wealthy patient) just prior to the Congress, and the inauguration of the IPA, and then his 'Report on America' to the Congress did not further endear Freud to Jung or to America. Freud may
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have been piqued by the reception given to dissident colleagues in America while later somewhat dependent upon American paying patients. Freud(1910) had already indicated the dangers of inappropriate and distorted efforts to analyze patients, and the necessity to have proper training and analytic education. The IPA was founded with training standards in mind, and all members were expected to at least have conducted self-analysis! Freud had given the opening address to the Congress, on 30 March 1910: 'The Future Prospects of Psychoanalytic Therapy.' The paper indicated a new emphasis upon the analysis of resistance and the gains from neurotic illness. What is particularly noteworthy is the optimism of the time concerning psychoanalysis and its applications. I should therefore like to let you go with an assurance that treating your patients psychoanalytically you are doing your duty in more senses than one. You are not merely working for the service of science, by making use of the one and only opportunity for discovering the secrets of the neuroses; you are not only giving your patients the most efficacious remedy for their sufferings that is available today; you are contributing your share to the enlightenment of the community from which we expect to achieve the most radical prophylaxis against neurotic disorders along the indirect path of social authority. ( Freud 1910,P.151) Freud's paper may also be seen as a reply to Jung's proposal (11 February 1910) for a social-religious infiltration of psychoanalysis into society and culture. The problems that Freud both recognized and overlooked in Jung persisted and further emerged. Adler's resignation and departure from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in March 1911 appeared to consolidate Jung's position, even as Jung was drifting into religious and mythic mysticism. In the Spring of 1911 his scientific writing was rambling and disorganized, often to the point of being unreadable and incomprehensible (Homans 1974). Jung asked Freud not to worry about him, and Freud still regarded Jung as the sole heir to 'the empire I founded' (Freud to Binswanger, 23 March 1911). However, at the same time, a surprising, secret, highly ambivalent reference to Jung appeared in Freud's (1911) brief, famous paper, ' Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning.' Freud cited a dream of Jung which had occurred and recurred after Jung's father's death in 1896 (Kerr 1993). Jung's dream was presented and interpreted without attribution at the end of Freud's paper, and this dream was also added to the third edition of The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud 1900). Freud related: A man who had once nursed his father through a long and painful mortal illness, told me that in the months following his father's death he had repeatedly dreamt that his father was alive once more and that he was talking to him in his usual way. But he felt it exceedingly painful that his father had really died, only without knowing it. The only way of understanding this apparently nonsensical dream is by adding 'as the dreamer wished' or 'in consequence of his wish' after the words 'that his father had really died,' and by further adding 'that he [the dreamer] wished it' to the last words. The dreamthought then runs: it was a painful memory for him that he had been obliged to wish for
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PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HISTORY (1998) 1(1) his father's death (as a release) while he was still alive, and how terrible it would have been if his father had had any suspicion of it! What we have here is thus the familiar case of self-reproaches after the loss of someone loved, and in this instance the self-reproach went back to the infantile significance of death-wishes against the father. (1910, p. 225)
Jung had assumed the dream referred to the possibility of an afterlife, a belief in the occult and mystical rebirth or resurrection. Freud had again interpreted what Jung had denied, death wishes toward Freud. Jung did not acknowledge the transference of infantile hostility in his dream. Rather, the manifest content conveyed Jung's conscious interest in communication with the dead molded with notions of phylogenetic symbols. Jung did not overtly respond to Freud's use of Jung's dream, its significance in their relationship, or to Freud's published interpretation of the dream. Jung had written to Freud (10 December 1910) concerning his own paper on `Two Kinds of Thinking,' (inviting comparison with Freud's `Two Principles of Mental Functioning') so the interidentification of the two colleagues is again suggested. This identification is also inferred in Freud's use of Jung's dream material without citation, perhaps similar to his later complaint about Jung at the time of the second fainting spell in Jung's presence. This occurred in Munich, Germany, 24 November 1912 when their relationship was rapidly deteriorating and approaching termination. Referring to the Pharaoh Amenhotep, the founder of monotheism, Freud interpreted Amenhotep's erasure of his father's name from Egyptian monuments as derivative of unconscious parricidal wishes. Jung disagreed, claiming that the elimination of the father's name, and thus the name and divinity of the old God, was needed to consolidate the new religion. While Jung spoke on, Freud fainted. Jung carried the fallen Freud (similar to the first fainting episode in Bremen, Germany, August 1909) to a couch. According to Jones (Vol. I), who was present at the time, Freud looked up at Jung and said, ` How sweet it must be to die' (p. 317). Freud later wrote to Jones (8 December 1912) that he had suffered similar symptoms in the same Munich park hotel room when he had visited Fliess. The fainting spells in Jung's presence were both connected with death wishes associated with guilt and masochistic surrender. Freud's interpretation of Jung's dream did not then take into account countertransference. Freud and Jung may well have enacted Jung' s dream fantasy when Freud fainted, based upon reciprocal parent/child shared fantasy ( Blum 1988) or upon reciprocal projective identification. The enactment dramatized the extraordinary ambivalence and the death of the relationship in the second fainting episode. The prior publication of Jung's dream in 1911 unconsciously signified in form and content that their relationship was fatally determined. This may be inferred from the manifest phrase, 'he felt it exceedingly painful that his father had really died, only without knowing it' (Freud 1910, p. 225). In the same paper, Freud had noted the tenacity with which sources of pleasure are held, how rational thought processes can be brought back under the dominance of the pleasure principle, and the difficulty of distinguishing
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unconscious fantasies from unconscious memories. Preceding the illustrative analysis of Jung's dream, Freud compared the domain of the pleasure principle to a national preserve protected from the changes of civilization, i.e., Yellowstone Park (1911, p. 222). This unusual, pleasurable association to America was balanced by the conquest of the pleasure principle by the reality ego and the solution to a mystic's dream by rational analytic interpretation. The two principals were also Freud and Jung and their diverging, analytic principles. Freud's misgivings concerning Jung were fortified by his other colleagues, and probably by Sabina Spielrein. Without reviewing the Sabina Spielrein involvement with Jung and Freud here, it should be noted that she was far more emotionally involved with Jung, her former therapist and probable lover as well as mentor. Jung (7 March 1909) at first `erased' her name, primarily for selfprotection and self-exoneration, rather than protecting her anonymity when writing to Freud about a scandal in which Jung's intentions were ` honorable.' Blaming Spielrein by name on 4 June 1909, Jung wrote to Freud that she was systematically planning his seduction and revenge. Freud proceeded to initially absolve Jung, (as he had done earlier with Fliess), writing on 7 June 1909, `Such experiences, though painful, are necessary and hard to avoid... no lasting harm is done. They help us to develop the thick skin we need and to dominate the countertransference'. Though initially in the Freud/Jung correspondence, it is probably significant that the term `countertransference' first appeared in the analytic literature in 1910 in Freud's paper on `The Future Prospects of psychoanalytic Therapy.' Countertransference became evident in Jung's reactions to Sabina Spielrein and Freud's reactions to Jung. When Jung soon Confessed to a piece of knavery, Freud remained reluctant to indict him by concurring and perhaps already had in mind their forthcoming trip together to America. Writing Jung (16 April 1909), Freud noted his fear of death at age 61 ()r 62 in connection with regarding Jung as his successor. He earlier had fantasied Jung writing his obituary. He superstitiously believed that his death would coincide with the completion of The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud 1900), identifying with Fliess `in the year of his attack on me' (accusing Freud ,)I' plagiarism of the concept of bisexuality). Freud's response may also be read chat be was attacked by Jung, but unconsciously conflating Fliess and Jung. When Freud wrote Ferenczi (6 October 1910) that his dreams were entirely concerned with Fliess to whom he had overcome his homosexual investment, the immediate, current implications probably concerned Jung more than ferenczi or Fliess. Freud was further reminded of Fliess by Jung's not writing to him, and by Jung's changing the date of the 1912 International Psychoanalytical Congress so that he could lecture at Fordham University. The Fordham Lectures indicated Jung's departure from belief in infantile etiology .end confirmed his flight from the universal importance of incest and its piohibition. Jung also had implied in his scientific writing that oedipal fixation with more uncontrolled incestuous feeling was more characteristic of Jews. The incestuous fantasies of children were for Jung part of the struggle to adapt.
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Christian symbolism compelled self-sacrifice to a higher purpose, a reversal of the Freudian interpretation of unconscious infantile symbols. America now was associated with Jung and Freud's disillusionment and ensuing disdain. Indicting Freud, Jung impugned his own integrity, e.g., his letter to Sabina Spielrein's mother, demanding payment of his fee if Jung was not to feel free to obtain substitute compensation through sexual favors from his patient. Having arisen more clearly during the rise of Nazism, Jung's sexist, racist, and antiSemitic attitudes have been the subject of much recent discussion. Jung had already differentiated between Aryans and Jews on his walk with Freud through Central Park in 1909. This foreshadowed some of Jung's later writings, with attitudes of bigotry. In 1934, he wrote of the `Higher Potential of the Aryan Unconscious' and in 1936, Jung stated that the SS were being transformed into a ruling cast of knights. There was, above all, a basic theoretical divergence between the estranged colleagues. Freud' s writings in the aftermath of Jung's `defection' were in many ways a response to his opposing ideas and personal reactions to Jung. This may be discerned in Freud's depiction of the controlled rage of `The Moses of Michelangelo' (Freud 1914) contrasted with the angry outbursts of Michelangelo and the Christian Pope. His reaction to Jung paralleled his earlier idealizations such as the idealization and exoneration of Fliess in the Emma Eckstein surgical debacle (Blum 1990). It was followed by his overestimation of Horace Frink, a nonJewish American psychiatrist and patient whom Freud hoped would have a leadership role in American psychoanalysis. Tendencies toward split idealization and denigration persisted as Freud had earlier formulated, `My emotional life has always insisted that I should have an intimate friend and a hated enemy' (1900, p. 483). Their relationship severed, Freud and Jung parted in discord and dissent. After `leaving' Freud in 1913, Jung experienced a near psychotic break or actual psychosis. Jung actually resigned as President of the IPA in April 1914. By then an idealized `committee' had taken Jung's place to champion psychoanalysis, receiving rings from Freud as they all pledged their allegiance and scientific support. It is of historic interest that Freud's fantasy that Jung would write his obituary actually was realized. Freud died on 23 September 1939, and Jung's obituary appeared in the Sunday supplement to the Basler Nachrichten on 1 October 1939. Jung extolled Freud, stating that the intellectual history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century could not be imagined without the name of the founder of psychoanalysis. The Freudian paradigm had ` touched nearly every sphere of contemporary intellectual life, with the exception of the exact sciences.' Jung's tribute after Freud's death was offered at the onset of World War Two, and was a departure from his earlier attraction to Nazism. Jung further elaborated his own divergent psychoanalytic theories and mystical philosophy. Jungian analysis has remained outside the IPA which he was to have governed for life.
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HAROLD P BLUM References
Binswanger, L. (1957) Sigmund Freud: Reminiscences of a Friendship. New York: Grune and Stratton. Blum, H. (1988) Shared Fantasy and Reciprocal Identification, and their Role in Gender Disorder. In Fantasy, Myth, and Reality (eds. Harold P. Blum, Yale Kramer, Arlene K. Richards & Arnold D. Richards). Madison, CT: Internat. Univ. Press, pp. 323-38. -- (1990) Freud, Fliess, and the parenthood of psychoanalysis. Psycho. Q. 59: 21-39. Carotenuto, A. (1986) A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Spielrein between Jung and Freud. New York: Pantheon. Donn, L. (1988) Freud and Jung: Y ears of Friendship, Y ears of Loss. New York: Scribner. Freud, S. (1900) The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard Edition 4, 5. -- (1908) Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness. SE 9. -- (1909) Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis. SE 11. -- (1910) The Future Prospects of Psychoanalytic Therapy. SE 11. -- (1910b) Wild Psychoanalysis. SE 11. -- (1911) Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. SE 12 -- (1914) The Moses of Michelangelo. SE 13. -- (1916) Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. SE 16. -- (1925) An Autobiographical Study. SE 20. Gay, P. (1988) Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: Norton. Homans, P. (1974) Narcissism in the Jung/Freud Confrontations. A mer. Imago 38: 81-95. Jones, E. (1953, 1955) The Lif e and Work of S igmund Freud, Vol. I, V ol. 11. New York: Basic Books. Jung, C. (1973) Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Pantheon. -- (1975) Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vols 1-7), ( eds. H. Read et al.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Kerr, J. (1993) A Most Dangerous Method. New York: Vintage. Limentani, A. (1996) A Brief History of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Internat. J. Psycho-Anal. 77: 149-58. Paskauskas, R.A. (1988) Freud's Break with Jung: The Crucial Role of Ernest Jones. Free A ssociations No. 11: 7-34. Rosenzweig, S. (1992) Freud, Jung, and Hall the King-Maker. Seattle, WA.: Hogrefe-Huber. Wittels, F. (1924) Sigmund Freud: His Personality, His Teaching, and His School. London: Allen & University.
Freud Correspondence Brabant, E., Falzeder, E. & Giampieri-Deutsch, P. eds. (1995) The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi, V ol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. McGuire, W., ed. (1974) The Freud/Jung Letters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Paskauskas, R.A., ed. (1993) The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ABSTRACT
Freud and Jung's relationship was characterized by initial, reciprocal idealization. Freud regarded Jung as an ideal non-Jewish representative of psychoanalysis to the wider world. For Jung, Freud was mentor, model, and quasi-therapist. After psychoanalysis was 'internationally recognized,' following their trip to America, Freud proposed to make Jung permanent president of the newly founded International Psychoanalytical Association. Jung was to be the virtual sovereign of psychoanalysis. Their relationship gradually deteriorated and ended in reciprocal denigration. Freud's conflicts with Jung and with Jung's divergent theories were reflected in his symptomatic fainting and his scientific writings, e.g., 'On Narcissism' and the 'Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning'. This was associated with continuing self-analysis, and the analysis of ambivalence and reciprocal unconscious death wishes.
