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Freud's Women: Family, Patients, Followers
Focusing on the women in Freud's life, the authors reveal the influence of female patients, followers, and family members on the theories of the father of psychoanalysis. By the author of Memory and Desire. National ad/promo.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published October 29, 1992
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About the author
Lisa Appignanesi
59 books97 followersaka Jessica Ayre
Elżbieta Borensztejn was born on 4 January 1946 in Łódź, Poland, the daughter of Hena and Aaron Borensztejn with Jewish origin. Following her birth, her parents moved to Paris, France, and in 1951 they emigrating to Canada. She grew up in the province of Quebec - first in a small Laurentian town, subsequently in Montreal.
She graduated from McGill University with a B.A. degree in 1966 and her M.A. the following year. During 1970-71 she was a staff writer for the Centre for Community Research in New York City and is a former University of Essex lecturer in European Studies. She was a founding member and editorial director of the Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. Through the eighties she was a Deputy Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, UK, for whom she also edited the seminal Documents Series and established ICA television and the video Writers in Conversation series.
She produced several made for television films and had written a number of books before devoting herself to writing fulltime in 1990. In recognition of her contribution to literature, Lisa Appignanesi has been honoured with a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government. In 2004, she became Deputy President of English PEN and has run its highly successful 'Free Expression is No Offence Campaign' against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. In 2008 she became President of English PEN. She writes for The Guardian, The Independent and has made several series for BBC Radio 4, as well as frequently appearing as a cultural commentator.
In 1967, she married Richard Appignanesi, another writer, with whom she had one son in 1975, Josh Appignanesi, a film director. They divorced in 1984. With her life partner John Forrester, she had a daugther, Katrina Forrester, a Research Fellow in the history of modern political thought at St John's College, Cambridge. She lives in London.
Elżbieta Borensztejn was born on 4 January 1946 in Łódź, Poland, the daughter of Hena and Aaron Borensztejn with Jewish origin. Following her birth, her parents moved to Paris, France, and in 1951 they emigrating to Canada. She grew up in the province of Quebec - first in a small Laurentian town, subsequently in Montreal.
She graduated from McGill University with a B.A. degree in 1966 and her M.A. the following year. During 1970-71 she was a staff writer for the Centre for Community Research in New York City and is a former University of Essex lecturer in European Studies. She was a founding member and editorial director of the Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. Through the eighties she was a Deputy Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, UK, for whom she also edited the seminal Documents Series and established ICA television and the video Writers in Conversation series.
She produced several made for television films and had written a number of books before devoting herself to writing fulltime in 1990. In recognition of her contribution to literature, Lisa Appignanesi has been honoured with a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government. In 2004, she became Deputy President of English PEN and has run its highly successful 'Free Expression is No Offence Campaign' against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. In 2008 she became President of English PEN. She writes for The Guardian, The Independent and has made several series for BBC Radio 4, as well as frequently appearing as a cultural commentator.
In 1967, she married Richard Appignanesi, another writer, with whom she had one son in 1975, Josh Appignanesi, a film director. They divorced in 1984. With her life partner John Forrester, she had a daugther, Katrina Forrester, a Research Fellow in the history of modern political thought at St John's College, Cambridge. She lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 1, 2018
A French teacher of mine once said that every slip of her tongue, while growing up, was given a Freudian analysis. How dangerous was that?
It probably delayed the #metoo movement by decades if not half a century. Appignanesi and Forrester write that “Freud stands accused of having transformed his subtle misogyny into a model of the world in which women can only be failed men.” While most people remember Freud as a psychoanalyst who broke with Jung and whose interpretations relied heavily on sex, the author here reminds us that he tarnished his own reputation, at least for feminists, by falsifying patients’ evidence and changing their accounts of real childhood abuse into the register of fantasy, throwing over his early seduction theory for a more palatable version of events in which Oedipal desire shapes memory.
If that is true, then why did so many of Freud’s female patients go on to develop psychoanalysis into the healing therapy that it is today? How could they have been other than inspired? I remember finding in this book the suggestion that women are far better suited to the gentle and patient art of psychoanalysis. Would a woman analyst fall asleep, as Freud did, during a session when she was supposed to be listening to a patient?
True, Freud was very old when that happened. As a young man, he lived in a Europe where anyone with mental problems might find herself crammed into a filthy prison, there obliged to live out the rest of her days like a jackal—on the hunt for a scrap of slop, on guard against other psychotic patients. Salpetriere, in Paris, was an asylum that housed some 5 to 8 thousand women—one percent of the female population of Paris. It was easier for a man to commit a woman to an asylum than vice versa.
Jean Martin Charcot was the head physician of Salpetriere, and he built off the work done by Paul Briquette. They studied what they called female hysteria. Freud studied under Charcot and then returned to Vienna.
This book is a sweeping account of Freud’s work, his life, his women patients and colleagues, their work, and the relationship between them all. It is fascinating. I will never forget that his wife, Martha, never thought much of his psychoanalysis, not even when later her own daughter, Anna, went on to carve a niche for herself in the arena of child psychology.
I think most female readers will be more drawn to the pioneering female analysts than to Freud. Freud, though kind and a pioneer, was somewhat condescending. The women who dived into this field usually started out with problems of their own and then became fascinated by the field itself.
Sabina Spielrein, Loe Kann, Lou Andreas-Salome, Marie Bonaparte, Helene Deutsch and Anna Freud are all names of important women who learned and evolved from Freud’s science. Spielrein, who did important early work in the realm of schizophrenia, herself suffered a psychotic episode as a young woman wherein “her condition . . . got so bad that she really did nothing else than alternate between deep depressions and fits of laughing, crying and screaming. She could no longer look anyone in the face, kept her head bowed, and when anybody touched her, stuck her tongue out with every sign of loathing.” So said her personal analyst at the time, Carl Gustav Jung, who studied under Freud. Spielrein fell madly in love with Jung in a classic example of transference.
The first child analyst was Hermine Hug-Hellmuth (1871-1924). She was the third woman to become a member of the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society after Hilferding and Spielrein. Because her life ended so nightmarishly, other analysts have tried to suppress the memory of her career.
Hermine had an illegitimate sister who was brought to live with her by her father. When this sister, named Antoine, had a child, Hermine became the family doctor and analyst and used her own nephew as a subject throughout her life. His mother died when he was nine and he was precociously delinquent. According to Antoine’s will, Hermine could not care for the child, but she did act as a source of finance and observer while he was shuttled between boarding schools and foster families. The young Rolf stole, was expelled from schools, and on Sept. 9, 1924, broke into his aunt’s apartment, killed her, and took her money. Her will named him as sole beneficiary.
Hers is just one of the many fascinating stories that fill this book. Freud’s Women, intentionally or not, also shows how psychoanalysis is developed largely by people who deny the spiritual while enlarging upon the psyche.
It probably delayed the #metoo movement by decades if not half a century. Appignanesi and Forrester write that “Freud stands accused of having transformed his subtle misogyny into a model of the world in which women can only be failed men.” While most people remember Freud as a psychoanalyst who broke with Jung and whose interpretations relied heavily on sex, the author here reminds us that he tarnished his own reputation, at least for feminists, by falsifying patients’ evidence and changing their accounts of real childhood abuse into the register of fantasy, throwing over his early seduction theory for a more palatable version of events in which Oedipal desire shapes memory.
If that is true, then why did so many of Freud’s female patients go on to develop psychoanalysis into the healing therapy that it is today? How could they have been other than inspired? I remember finding in this book the suggestion that women are far better suited to the gentle and patient art of psychoanalysis. Would a woman analyst fall asleep, as Freud did, during a session when she was supposed to be listening to a patient?
True, Freud was very old when that happened. As a young man, he lived in a Europe where anyone with mental problems might find herself crammed into a filthy prison, there obliged to live out the rest of her days like a jackal—on the hunt for a scrap of slop, on guard against other psychotic patients. Salpetriere, in Paris, was an asylum that housed some 5 to 8 thousand women—one percent of the female population of Paris. It was easier for a man to commit a woman to an asylum than vice versa.
Jean Martin Charcot was the head physician of Salpetriere, and he built off the work done by Paul Briquette. They studied what they called female hysteria. Freud studied under Charcot and then returned to Vienna.
This book is a sweeping account of Freud’s work, his life, his women patients and colleagues, their work, and the relationship between them all. It is fascinating. I will never forget that his wife, Martha, never thought much of his psychoanalysis, not even when later her own daughter, Anna, went on to carve a niche for herself in the arena of child psychology.
I think most female readers will be more drawn to the pioneering female analysts than to Freud. Freud, though kind and a pioneer, was somewhat condescending. The women who dived into this field usually started out with problems of their own and then became fascinated by the field itself.
Sabina Spielrein, Loe Kann, Lou Andreas-Salome, Marie Bonaparte, Helene Deutsch and Anna Freud are all names of important women who learned and evolved from Freud’s science. Spielrein, who did important early work in the realm of schizophrenia, herself suffered a psychotic episode as a young woman wherein “her condition . . . got so bad that she really did nothing else than alternate between deep depressions and fits of laughing, crying and screaming. She could no longer look anyone in the face, kept her head bowed, and when anybody touched her, stuck her tongue out with every sign of loathing.” So said her personal analyst at the time, Carl Gustav Jung, who studied under Freud. Spielrein fell madly in love with Jung in a classic example of transference.
The first child analyst was Hermine Hug-Hellmuth (1871-1924). She was the third woman to become a member of the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society after Hilferding and Spielrein. Because her life ended so nightmarishly, other analysts have tried to suppress the memory of her career.
Hermine had an illegitimate sister who was brought to live with her by her father. When this sister, named Antoine, had a child, Hermine became the family doctor and analyst and used her own nephew as a subject throughout her life. His mother died when he was nine and he was precociously delinquent. According to Antoine’s will, Hermine could not care for the child, but she did act as a source of finance and observer while he was shuttled between boarding schools and foster families. The young Rolf stole, was expelled from schools, and on Sept. 9, 1924, broke into his aunt’s apartment, killed her, and took her money. Her will named him as sole beneficiary.
Hers is just one of the many fascinating stories that fill this book. Freud’s Women, intentionally or not, also shows how psychoanalysis is developed largely by people who deny the spiritual while enlarging upon the psyche.
September 10, 2013
I think of myself as an intelligent person. And I'm interested in psychology as well. But this was hard to read. It seemed like I needed a degree in psychoanalysis to understand what I was reading. Interesting premise, but it was more analysis than biography, which was disappointing.
January 14, 2025
I am a counselor who does not like Freud that much, though I am willing to concede that I may not like the distorted picture handed down of him through history and am open to re-evaluating some long held beliefs I have had about him. That said I have always been curious about what his relationship with his daughter, Anna, must have been like as well as his relationship with his mother considering he formulated concepts as 'penis envy' and 'the Oedipal complex.' When I found this book I thought it would be an illuminating examination of how he applied these concepts to his own family as a son, brother and father. Upon reading it though I found that I was not the intended audience.
This book is written for people who have already read a lot on Freud. To go into this book it is essential to have read at least one biography, perhaps two, and Freud's writings. Basically this is written for the fan of Freud, not someone who does not know much and is wanting to dip their toes into it. Basically halfway through the first chapter, after getting a few anecdotes about Freud's mother and paragraph after paragraph that was pretty much a psychoanalysis on Freud that I did not feel as though I had enough facts to follow, Freud's wife was introduced and we were moving into his young adulthood without adequately exploring his childhood. While there was some good information about his mother and younger sisters, a lot was lacking in what his relationship with his mother was like growing up, what his relationship between his parents was like, whether or not there was any sexual tensions between his older half brothers and his mother who was closer to their age than his father's age that contributed to his formulation of the Oedipal complex, etc. Given that I couldn't say that I gained much insight into Freud's dynamics with his mother this was rather disappointing. Basically to say that this is a biography is generous, it is a psychoanalysis of Freud's thoughts and feelings about the women in his life that only gives you the bare bones before trying to get into Freud's head.
For people who love psychoanalysis and getting into Freud's mind this book must be a delight and an absolute must have. But if you are anything but a devoted fan of Freud this likely is not the book for you. An additional ding is that the edition I had was poorly formatted, which is not something I find I need to critique often but given the heftiness of the material you think they would have put some more effort into making the text on paper easy to navigate.
This book is written for people who have already read a lot on Freud. To go into this book it is essential to have read at least one biography, perhaps two, and Freud's writings. Basically this is written for the fan of Freud, not someone who does not know much and is wanting to dip their toes into it. Basically halfway through the first chapter, after getting a few anecdotes about Freud's mother and paragraph after paragraph that was pretty much a psychoanalysis on Freud that I did not feel as though I had enough facts to follow, Freud's wife was introduced and we were moving into his young adulthood without adequately exploring his childhood. While there was some good information about his mother and younger sisters, a lot was lacking in what his relationship with his mother was like growing up, what his relationship between his parents was like, whether or not there was any sexual tensions between his older half brothers and his mother who was closer to their age than his father's age that contributed to his formulation of the Oedipal complex, etc. Given that I couldn't say that I gained much insight into Freud's dynamics with his mother this was rather disappointing. Basically to say that this is a biography is generous, it is a psychoanalysis of Freud's thoughts and feelings about the women in his life that only gives you the bare bones before trying to get into Freud's head.
For people who love psychoanalysis and getting into Freud's mind this book must be a delight and an absolute must have. But if you are anything but a devoted fan of Freud this likely is not the book for you. An additional ding is that the edition I had was poorly formatted, which is not something I find I need to critique often but given the heftiness of the material you think they would have put some more effort into making the text on paper easy to navigate.
January 29, 2021
Esta leitura ficou parada por muito tempo devido ao desanimo que me causou a linguagem psicanalítica, responsável pela pouca compreensão de algumas passagens. Mas fica um saldo positivo para mim, por aquilo que entendi, e pela percepção de uma verdade mostrada em fatos: Freud podia ser um sexista sob vários aspectos, em especial em seu casamento, mas - fato - apoiou diversas mulheres no seu interesse pela psicanálise, inclusive de várias que se tornaram, elas mesmas, com o endosso de Freud, profissionais nessa área.
November 30, 2022
*disso* amazing book!!!! so so insightful
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews