Daniel Benveniste > Quotes

“The end of the war brought the closing of the borders cutting off Austria’s coal supply from Czechoslovakia, leaving the Austrians at peace but hungry, cold, and vulnerable to tuberculosis and a virulent form of influenza (Grosskurth, 1991, p. 82). Writer Stefan Zweig described postwar Vienna as “an uncertain, gray, and lifeless shadow of the former imperial monarchy” (qtd. in Gay, 1988, p. 380).”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“Freud struck a philosophical note on January 25 when he wrote to Max of the “senseless, brutal act of fate, which has robbed us of our Sophie . . . One must bow one’s head under the blow, as a helpless, poor human being with whom higher powers are playing.”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“It was particularly moving to see, as the story unfolds, how such a badly traumatized, conflicted, and tormented human being as Ernest was could finally, later on in his life, soar high, accomplishing and contributing much to the field of his choice. Thus, he earned his rightful place among many other distinguished psychoanalysts.”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“In the 1930s one of Jung’s students, Joseph Wheelwright, asked him about the split from Freud, and in 1991 Wheelwright recounted Jung’s reply: He [Jung] sent his book. You know, they give you freebies when you publish a book, and you send them off to your buddies with a little note saying, “I love ya, honey.” So this was in 1913, and Jung sent one of these copies to Freud, and he got it back by return post, and scrawled across the flyleaf was “Resistance to the father. S. Freud.” It was unread . . . And I said, “Well, what did you do?” And he [Jung] said, “I turned to my wife, Emma, who was in the room and said, ‘I feel as though I have been thrown out of my father’s house.”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“Why he took Anna into analysis instead of sending her to Lou Andreas-Salomé or some other analyst is difficult to say. Some have said Freud would have compromised his authority if she had been on one of his students’ couches speaking of Freud not as the founder of psychoanalysis but as a father. They say, “Who could he have sent her to?” But the argument does not hold up well, as Freud sent his son Oliver into analysis with Franz Alexander in 1921. So why not Anna? When Anna’s analysis commenced in 1918, she also began writing poetry—that is, she was sublimating her conflicts and transforming her enthusiastic, self-absorbed daydreams into a literary art through which she could see herself from another perspective and also share her feelings with others”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“Long-past ages have a great and often puzzling attraction for men’s imagination. Whenever they are dissatisfied with their present surroundings—and this happens often enough—they turn back to the past and hope that they will now be able to prove the truth of the inextinguishable dream of a golden age. They are probably still under the spell of their childhood, which is presented to them by their not impartial memory as a time of uninterrupted bliss. —Sigmund Freud, “Moses and Monotheism”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“It was W. Ernest Freud who at eighteen months of age captured his grandfather’s interest while playing with a wooden reel on the end of a string. Throwing the reel while holding onto the string, Ernst—as he was known then—would say “fort,” which in German means “gone.” Pulling it back, he would say “da,” meaning “there.” Freud interpreted this game as Ernst’s effort to come to terms with the distressing absences of his mother when she left the apartment. With the wooden reel symbolizing his mother, he sent her away and brought her back at will. Instead of being a passive victim of loss—being left by his mother—he turned his passive role into an active”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“On January 25, 1920, Sophie Halberstadt, mother of Ernst and Heinerle and pregnant with her third child, died just one day before her seventh wedding anniversary. The cause of death was fulminant influenza pneumonia (E. Freud et al., 1976, p. 26; Gay, 1988, p. 391; Schur, 1972, p. 318). Max took Ernst into the living room, sat him on his knee, and told him the one thing that no father wants to tell his child—that his mother was dead. Ernst shut down. Freud later wrote, “When this child was five and three-quarters, his mother died. Now that she was really ‘gone’ (‘o-o-o’), the little boy showed no signs of grief” (S. Freud, 1920/1955, SE 18, p. 16). Max set up, on the crossbeam of the door frame, a small swing on which Ernst anxiously swung for hours on end in a desperate attempt to soothe himself.”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“It is also quite likely that the following observation took place in Berggasse 19 as well, since Sophie and Ernst arrived there in November 1916, just a little more than one year after Freud’s initial fort da observation: “A year later [after Freud’s first observation of the fort da game], the same boy whom I had observed at his first game used to take a toy, if he was angry with it, and throw it on the floor, exclaiming: ‘Go to the fwont!’ He had heard at that time that his absent father was ‘at the front,’ and was far from regretting his absence; on the contrary he made it quite clear that he had no desire to be disturbed in his sole possession of his mother”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“Ernst, on the other hand, was a problem child. He enjoyed a blissful relationship with his mother early in life, only to have that bliss shattered by the return of his father from the war front, the birth of his brother, and finally the death of his mother. Stunned by the succession of losses at such a tender age, Ernst was desperate for love and largely incapable of returning it. He became unpleasant to be with and difficult to love.”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“In October Sigmund Freud received an offer of one thousand dollars for a single article from New York–based Cosmopolitan magazine. Pleased with the offer, he suggested the title “Don’t Use Psychoanalysis in Polemics.” They wrote back saying they were thinking of something more like “The Wife’s Mental Place in the Home” followed by “The Husband’s Mental Place in the Home.” Freud responded with a stinging letter and indicated that the deal was”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis

“I ONCE ASKED W. ERNEST FREUD WHEN IT WAS THAT HE BEGAN HIS psychoanalytic training, and without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “In my mother’s belly.” He was Sigmund Freud’s oldest grandson.”
― Daniel Benveniste, The Interwoven Lives of Sigmund, Anna and W. Ernest Freud: Three Generations of Psychoanalysis