Search Within Inner Experiences of A

by Theodor Reik

5 7/8"x8 5/8" 657 page hardcover published by Farrar, Staraus and Cudahy in 1956 on "the author's personal life, his training, development of his philosophy"

Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Lay analyst Theodor Reik was born on 5/12/1888, in Vienna, & died on 12/31/69, in New York. He was the 3rd child of four born to the cultured, lower-middle-class Jewish family of Max & Caroline Reik. Reik's father was a low-salaried government clerk who died when Theodor was 18. Freud became a father figure for the rest of his life. He attended public schools in Vienna & entered the University of Vienna, aged 18, where he studied psychology, French & German literature. He received a PhD in 1912, writing the 1st psychoanalytic dissertation, on Flaubert's The Temptation of St Anthony. He met Freud in 1910, and two years later became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In 1914-15 he was in analysis with Karl Abraham in Berlin &, with the outbreak of WWI, served as an officer in the Austrian cavalry from 1915 to '18, seeing combat in Montenegro & Italy & being decorated for bravery. Following the resignation of Otto Rank, Reik became the Secretary of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. For a decade he practiced in Vienna & began to write so extensively that Freud asked him: "Why do you piss around so much? Just piss in one spot" (Natterson, '66). Freud wrote "The Question of Lay Analysis" in defense of Reik, who'd been prosecuted under the quackery laws of Austria for practicing medicine. Reik moved to Berlin, where he lived & practiced from 1928 'til 1934 & again was a celebrated teacher at the psychoanalytic institute. Fearing the rise of the Nazis, he left for The Hague, where he continued practicing & teaching. During this time his 1st wife Ella, mother of his son Arthur, died. He married Marija. Two children were born of this, Theodora & Miriam. Still fearful of the Nazis, he moved to NYC where, as a non-medical analyst, he was denied full membership in the Psychoanalytic Society. Reik wouldn't accept the position of research analyst, altho he could have made a "charade" of agreement & practiced, as many did. Reik experienced financial difficulties for many periods. He was treated gratis by both Karl Abraham & Freud & for a time he received financial support of 200 marks a month from Freud. After he wrote for help in 1938, Freud wrote back: "What ill wind has blown you, just you, to America? You must have known how amiably lay analysts would be received there by our colleagues for whom psychoanalysis is nothing more that one of the handmaidens of psychiatry" (Hale, '95). Reik persevered, however, building a practice, & soon a group of colleagues centered around him &, in 1948, the Nat'l Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis was founded. Reik's influence on the development of nonmedical analysis in the USA was great. Not only did his many books have a profound effect on the general reading public but his influence through the NPAP (Nat'l Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis) & the institutes that split from it suggest that Reik was the major promulgator of non-medical analysis in the USA. Reik's psychoanalytic studies include discussions of such writers as Beer-Hofmann, Flaubert & Schnitzler as well as Shakespeare, Goethe & Gustav Mahler, to name but a few. He had a unique way of communicating & his writing & conversational style was free associational. His autobiography is to be found in his many works. Among his better known are: Listening with the Third Ear ('48); the monumental Masochism in Modern Man ('49); Surprise & the Psychoanalyst ('35); his recollection of Freud, From Thirty Years with Freud ('40); an autobiographical study, Fragment of a Great Confession ('49); applied psychoanalysis of the Bible in Mystery on the Mountain ('58); anthropology in Ritual ('58); & sexuality in Of Love and Lust ('59), Creation of Woman ('60), & The Psychology of Sex Relations ('61); & music in The Haunting Melody ('60). Toward the end of his life Reik, who grew a beard, resembled the older Freud & lived modestly, surrounded by photos of Freud from childhood to old age.

Reviews

[Nik Maack · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a dated, complicated, infuriating, and often boring book. It's a massive tome. Broken into various sections, it ranges from autobiography, critical essays, how to do psychoanalysis, a kind of psychoanalytic anthropology, and more.

Reik worships Freud, and includes (at the end of the book) a section of letters he has received from Freud. This includes such boring letters as:

***
Dear Herr Doctor,
Just received your book and letter. Cordial thanks. I am wishing a beautiful time to you and your wife.
-- Freud
***

Thanks for sharing that one, Reik old boy. I skipped most of this section of the book, finding the letters really dull. Do you want to read a letter Freud wrote Reik, where Freud critiques the content of an essay Reik wrote, which you haven't read?

So why did I pick up this book anyway? I read the two volume set Reik wrote on masochism and found it very helpful, if difficult to read. The idea of social masochism (committing yourself to a pointless cause) and delayed gratification (sometimes into the afterlife, such as with religion) was amazing. At some point I must have considered getting more books by Reik to read. That included this book, which sat around for years, untouched. Because it's big, boring, and dense.

Reik at one point writes an essay, about an essay Freud wrote, about the writings of some other author (whose name I've forgotten, but let's call him Farley). Reik assumes you read Farley, and Freud's essay. Which you haven't, because Freud and Farley are long dead and it's now 2019. So picture an essay, about an essay, about an author you don't know, all from the 1940s. More than a bit dry and unreadable.

The good stuff is Reik talking about his own mind and how it works. When his father died, Reik obsessively read Goethe -- literally read every piece of Goethe writing he could. He acknowledges this was entirely a reaction to his father's death. Reik also talks about how, once his dad died, Reik got... well... very sexually aroused. Again, a reaction to his dad's death. These sections are pretty great -- as are his descriptions of meeting his first wife, and how her heart disease made their relationship very difficult. He couldn't have sex with her without her almost dying from her heart condition, so he starts having affairs. Meanwhile he does everything he can (masochistically) to give his wife everything she could possibly want. He is good because he suffers for her, and he is terrible because he has affairs, and he tortures himself. At one point, he realizes that on an unconscious level he wants his wife to die so he could be free. All of this material is coverred with a psychoanalytic bent, and it's absolutely stunning.

Reik also talks about a way of thinking and processing information in a psychoanalytic manner. A random thought bubbles up in his mind, and it's important, but cryptic and weird. But what does it mean? Reik wants to solve this question. And so he describes how he used the psychoanalytic process to understand that thought, work it through, and expand upon it. This is hard to describe, but it's a way of understaning your own brain and thoughts that I totally get, and I found his writings on this helpful, if somewhat difficult to follow.

Reik loved opera and classical music, and spends a lot of time talking about how music and psychoanalysis are related. He talks about operas at great length, analysing them. Alas, the opera is super obscure, and his analysis is meaningless to me. Now, if he was psychoanalysing Star Trek, or something a little more modern, it would make for interesting reading.

My therapist once asked me, why do I keep reading OLD books about therapy, and about therapists of long ago? Why not read some NEW ones? It's a good question. I like the idea of reading weird, old, obscure books no one else has read. Finding some kind of ancient wisdom that has gone neglected. Weirdly, I will read Reik, but those times I've tried to read Freud didn't go so well. I found Freud dull.

I'm going to try reading more books by modern psychotherapists. The unconscious is very real to me, particularly after having finished a decade of therapy. But Reik is interesting, in bits and pieces.