The Letters of Sigmund Freud, Edited by Ernest L. Freud with a New Introduction by Steven Marcus

by Sigmund Freud

First extensive selection of Freud’s correspondence contains 315 letters written from 1873 to 1939. Addressed to Einstein, Thomas Mann, Havelock Ellis, H. G. Wells, Maria Montessori, Carl Jung, Romain Rolland, many others. Over one third are love letters to Martha Bernays. Highly readable, nontechnical. Bibliography. Footnotes. Translated by Tania and James Stern. 15 halftones.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Psychoanalysis

Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Dr. Sigismund Freud (later changed to Sigmund) was a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, who created an entirely new approach to the understanding of the human personality. He is regarded as one of the most influential—and controversial—minds of the 20th century.

In 1873, Freud began to study medicine at the University of Vienna. After graduating, he worked at the Vienna General Hospital. He collaborated with Josef Breuer in treating hysteria by the recall of painful experiences under hypnosis. In 1885, Freud went to Paris as a student of the neurologist Jean Charcot. On his return to Vienna the following year, Freud set up in private practice, specialising in nervous and brain disorders. The same year he married Martha Bernays, with whom he had six children.

Freud developed the theory that humans have an unconscious in which sexual and aggressive impulses are in perpetual conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, he began an intensive analysis of himself. In 1900, his major work 'The Interpretation of Dreams' was published in which Freud analysed dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences.

In 1902, Freud was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Vienna, a post he held until 1938. Although the medical establishment disagreed with many of his theories, a group of pupils and followers began to gather around Freud. In 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded with Carl Jung, a close associate of Freud's, as the president. Jung later broke with Freud and developed his own theories.

After World War One, Freud spent less time in clinical observation and concentrated on the application of his theories to history, art, literature and anthropology. In 1923, he published 'The Ego and the Id', which suggested a new structural model of the mind, divided into the 'id, the 'ego' and the 'superego'.

In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt a number of Freud's books. In 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.

Freud had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1923, and underwent more than 30 operations. He died of cancer on 23 September 1939.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A ‘MORE PERSONAL KIND’ OF COLLECTION OF FREUD’S LETTERS

Editor Ernest Freud (Freud’s son) wrote in the Preface to this 1975 collection, “As a letter writer, my father was unusually prolific and conscientious… He answered every letter he received, no matter from whom, and as a rule this answer was in the post within 24 hours. His evenings he devoted to scientific writing, but every spare minute between analyses was dedicated to his correspondence… The material in this volume has not been selected from a biographical point of view, nor does it include any of those letters dealing in their entirety with the theory and practice of psychoanalysis…. In this collection I have confined myself to letters of a more personal kind in the hope that those who know Sigmund Freud only from his work shall receive here a portrait of the man, of the percipient, thinking, battling human being. These letters are intended to show the breadth of his nature, the passion and singlemindedness not only of the young man in love but of the mature man in his lifelong search for scientific truth… The arrangement of the material is purely chronological…”

In a 1883 letter to Martha Bernays (his future wife), Freud wrote, “My precious Marty, What can it be that you want and do not dare to mention?... could it possibly be a deed of self-conquest? Am I to fast at Yom Kippur or reconcile myself to someone I don’t like? Surely not. My Marty would not abuse her power and persuade me to actions that lack sense as well as honesty. I hope she wants something for herself and I hope I can catch and give it to her…” (Pg. 55)

In another 1883 letter, he explained to Martha, “The deeper I penetrate into medicine, the more difficult writing for publication becomes. Not because I have to fulfill demands that are greater than they used to be. No, because most publications require so much self-denial. If authors had more self-criticism, nine-tenths of them would not be authors. I have read a great deal of indifferent and even more inaccurate stuff, and cannot of course write like this myself.” (Pg. 67)

In an 1885 letter to Martha, he reported a conversation he had with a peer, “I would like to ask your opinion whether on the strength of my existing publications I should apply for the ‘Dozentur’ or whether I should wait till I have more. ‘What are your papers on, Doctor? Coca…?’ (So coca is associated with my name.) I interrupted him to produce my collected writings… “ (Pg.134)

In another 1885 letter to Martha, he acknowledged, “My lazy life could have come to an end today. I went… to introduce myself to the medical assistant and ask when Charcot is expected…. My laziness is beginning to worry me terribly; for days now my sense of guilt has not allowed me one calm hour. Apart from some subjective and scientific profit, I expect so little from my stay here that in this respect I cannot be disappointed.” (Pg. 171-172)

In an 1886 letter to Martha, he reveals, “The bit of cocaine I have just taken is making me talkative, my little woman. I will go on writing and comment on your criticism of my wretched self. Do you realize how strangely a human being is constructed, that his virtues are often the seed of his downfall and his faults the source of his happiness?... Now for a long time I have known that I am not a genius and cannot understand how I ever could have wanted to be one… Here I am, making silly confessions to you, my sweet darling, and really without any reason whatever unless it is the cocaine that makes me talk so much… the evening at Charcot’s … was so boring I nearly burst; only a bit of cocaine prevented me from doing so.” (Pg. 201-203)

In 1906, he wrote to Arthur Schnitzler, “you may imagine how pleased and elated I felt on reading that you too have derived inspiration from my writings. I am almost sorry to think that I had to reach the age of 50 before hearing something so flattering.” (Pg. 251)

In 1907, he wrote to C.G. Jung, “The only thing to do is to go ahead and work, not waste too much energy on refutations, and let the fertility of our ideas have its effect on the sterility of those we are fighting against. Envy, incidentally, is what shows in every line of [Max] Isserlin’s work. And certain things are really too stupid; everything testifies to ignorance.” (Pg. 254)

In another 1907 letter to Jung, he observed, “your letter describing the further developments of the Congress… didn’t depress me… People just don’t want to be enlightened. That is why for the present they can’t understand the simplest thing… Besides, we know they are poor devils who are partly afraid of giving offense, thus endangering their careers, and partly shackled by the fear of their own repressions. We have got to wait until they die out or gradually dwindle into a minority. Any young, fresh mind that turns up is bound to be on our side.” (Pg. 257)

In 1913, he wrote to James J. Putnam (a colleague), “That I look upon Jung’s new views as ‘regressive’ errors goes without saying, but this won’t necessarily be convincing to others. In cases of this kind everyone should consult his own experiences and the impression made on him by the arguments. On me all this has the effect of a déjà-vu. I have already experienced in the resistance of the nonanalyst what is now repeating itself in the resistance of the half-analyst.” (Pg. 299)

In a 1922 letter to Schnitzler, he observes, “I know that psychoanalysis is not the means of gaining popularity.” (Pg. 340)

In 1926, he wrote to the B’nai B’rith Lodge, explaining, “That you are Jews could only be welcome to me, for I was myself a Jew, and it has always appeared to me to be not only undignified, but outright foolish to deny it. What tied me to Jewry was---I have to admit it---not the faith, not even the national pride, for I was always an unbeliever. l have been brought up without religion, but not without respect for the so-called ‘ethical’ demands of human civilization. Whenever I have experienced feelings of national exaltation, I have tried to suppress them as disastrous and unfair, frightened by the warning example of those nations among which we Jews live. But there remained enough to make the attraction of Judaism and the Jews irresistible, many dark emotional powers all the stronger the less they could be expressed in words, as well as the clear consciousness of an inner identity, the familiarity of the same psychological structure. And before long there followed the realization that it was only my Jewish nature that I owed the two qualities that have become indispensable to me throughout my difficult life. Because I was a Jew I found myself free of many prejudices which restrict others in the use of the intellect: as a Jew I was prepared to be in the opposition and to renounce agreement with the ‘compact majority.’ So I became one of you, took part in your humanitarian and national interests, made friends among you and persuaded the few friends who had remained with me to join our Lodge… at a time when I had no pupils in Vienna, you offered me your sympathetic attention. You were my first audience.” (Pg. 366-367)

In 1928 he wrote to Major Richard A. Dyer-Bennet (who had sent him his pamphlet, ‘The Gospel of Living’), “I understand very well that you don‘t expect anything from the publication of your philanthropic pamphlet. My ‘Future of an Illusion’ has brought me almost only negative response, frequently indignant rejections.” (Pg. 384)

In 1930, he wrote to Romain Rolland, “the distinction between ‘extrovert’ and ‘introvert’ derives from C.G. Jung, who is a bit of a mystic himself and hasn’t belonged to us for years. We don’t attach any great importance to the distinction and are well aware that people can be both at the same time, and usually are.” (Pg. 393)

To Heinrich Lowry (who asked Freud for examples of ‘solutions to scientific problems’ for a book he proposed to write) Freud wrote in 1930, “within the methods of our work there is no kind of experiment made by physicists and physiologists. When I recollect isolated cases from the history of my work, I find that my working hypothesis invariably came about as a direct result of a great number of impressions based on experience… an hypothesis … was always replaced… by another idea which occurred to me…” (Pg. 396)

In 1934 he congratulated Oskar Pfister for receiving his Doctor of Theology degree, observing, “As a defender of religion against my ‘Future of an Illusion’ you have an exclusive right to it. But that the faculty of Geneva was not deterred by psychoanalysis from bestowing the [Doctor of Theology] title is something that at least deserves recognition.” (Pg. 420)

On April 9, 1935, he sent his famous letter to the anonymous mother of a homosexual son: “Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals … have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them.” (Pg. 423)

This book will be of great interest to those wanting to know more about Freud ‘the man,’ and not just the psychoanalyst.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is nothing particularly important about this volume except that it appeared in 1960 before so much of Freud's correspondence had become available. Perhaps it serves the purpose of giving one a sense of his epistolary style and range. Now, however, much more material has been released by the Freud Archives and, most importantly, the entire extant correspondence between him and Wilhelm Fliess. Herein, his correspondence with Martha Bernays, his wife, is most represented.

[Dora Witherell vandenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An look at the human and emotional side of Freud.