From Introspective Hypnotism to Freud's Self-Analysis. Procedures of Self-Observation in Clinical Practice

From Introspective Hypnotism to Freud's Self-Analysis. Procedures of Self-Observation in Clinical Practice "Tout psychologiste est obligé de faire l'aveu même de ses faiblesses s'il croit par là jeter du jour sur quelque problème obscur." Joseph Delbœuf, Le sommeil et les rêves (1885) "In the summer of 1897, Freud undertook his most heroic feat - a psychoanalysis of his own unconscious. It is hard for us nowadays to imagine how momentous this achievement was, that difficulty being the fate of most pioneering exploits. Yet the uniqueness of the feat remains. Once done it is done forever. For no one again can be the first to explore those depths." (Jones 1953: 319) This narration of Freud as the heroic discoverer of the dark continent of the unconscious was published in the first volume of Jones's biography in the 1950s. It is tempting for a critical historian to perceive in this self-analysis a mere hagiographical invention. The suspicion may stem from the manner in which this singular event is staged: in Jones's book, every chapter indicates at its onset the exact period of time it covers; the only exception being the chapter devoted to Freud's self-analysis. This section mentions just the initial date and leaves the final date blank, stressing both the "unfinished" and "incomplete" character of this exceptional analysis. The self-analysis is thus presented as a truly revolutionary and fundamental event: as an event creating history, without being historically datable.1 1 This framing of the self-analysis as an "endless beginning" links up with the narratives of the mystics. For an analysis of mystic speech and a comparison between forms of writing in mysticism and psychoanalysis, see Certeau (1982; 1987) and, in a similar vein, Chiantaretto (1998). Ellenberger ([1964] 1993) also groups Freud's self-analysis together with the experiences reported by the religious mystics and poets, reclassifying all these diverse singular events under the category of "creative illness". For other critical historians who perceive the major task of history and sociology of science in the destruction of myths, the question of dating the actual beginning of Freud's self-analysis and evaluating its eventual "results" are of chief importance (see Sulloway [1979] 1992: 207-210). Jones's hero-making version was one among many others to come: during the 1950s, Didier Anzieu wrote and published the first book-length study on the topic. In contrast to Jones, Anzieu (1959; 1986) tried to establish a detailed reconstruction of Freud's self-analysis and the parallel writing of The Interpretation of Dreams. Although a second character was introduced - Wilhelm Fliess as the Big Other -, the narration of the self-analysis turned into a family story and thus remained an extended chapter of Freud's biography, for most of the psychoanalytic literature after Jones and Anzieu takes for granted that Freud's self-analysis was triggered by a personal reaction to his father's death, guided by the author's own acknowledgment in the preface to the second edition of his book. In this preface, Freud declared that The Interpretation of Dreams was "a portion of my own self-analysis, my reaction to my father's death - that is to say, to the most important event, the most poignant loss, of a man's life." (Freud 1900b: xxvi) The endorsement of Freud's personal view of his self-analysis, be it on the side of those who sustained its inherent heroism (Eissler 1971: 279) or in the opposite camp of those critical historians who tried to dismantle this "myth of the hero" (Sulloway [1979] 1992), has largely hindered a historical understanding of its technical significance, especially in relation with other contemporary techniques of self-observation in academic or clinical psychologies. From Freud's usage in his letters to his friend Wilhelm Fliess and in the first version of The Interpretation of Dreams, it is evident that the term "self-analysis" does not denote a singular event, but a specific introspective procedure developed at a time when self-observation was still acknowledged as the chief practice from which psychological facts were to be gained.2 In the original version of the book, the introduction of the term "self-analysis" (Selbstanalyse) occurs 2 According to William James's declaration, "introspective observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always. The word introspection hardly needs to be defined - it means, of course, looking into our own minds and reporting what we discover there. Everyone agrees that there we discover states of consciousness. As far as I know, the existence of such states has never been doubted by any critic however skeptical in other respects he may have been." (James 1890, vol. I: 185) For histories about the demise of introspection in psychology, see Boring (1953) and Danziger (1980). 2 in the chapter about "The Method of Interpreting Dreams" and is used interchangeably with "self-observation": "No doubt I shall be met by doubts of the trustworthiness of 'self-analyses' of this kind; and I shall be told that they leave the door open to arbitrary conclusions. In my judgment, the situation is in fact more favourable in the case of self-observation than in that of other people; at all events we may make the experiment and see how far self-analysis takes us with the interpretation of dreams." (Freud 1900b: 105)3 Thus, in the first edition of the book, "self-analysis" refers to a new scientific technique proposed by Freud to his readers, whereas the second edition performs a reversal and casts the book as a part of the author's personal history.4 In what follows, I do not intend to explore this contradictory relationship between Freud's self-analysis and his book, or the transitions between autobiographical and scientific genres in its text. My task is rather to provide a historical frame for the first version of the dreambook by setting it in the clinical cultures of self-observation in the last decade of the 19th century. Despite the various discussions and reinterpretations of Freud's self-analysis, it is striking to see that no comprehensive studies have yet been undertaken on this topic.5 3 It should be noted that the notion "self-analysis" appears for the first time in Freud's book in plural and in quotation marks ("Selbstanalysen"). Throughout the book, the term recurs in singular only once again in the context of a dream in which Freud carries out the dissection of his own body (Freud 1900a: 262, 278; Freud 1900b: 454, 477). 4 When this remarkable shift is placed in its concrete historical context and linked to the politics of the psychoanalytic movement, Freud's sudden confession in the preface to the second edition appears in a different light: Between 1899 and 1907, the year when the second edition of the book was completed, Freud had forged the notion of the Oedipus complex which he now posited as a universal pattern structuring human sexuality (see Forrester 1980: 84-96). Only gradually, the acknowledgment of the Oedipal pattern provided a clear demarcation of the true and false Freudians. Thus, Freud's new preface should enable contemporary readers to link the freshly developed master concept of the Oedipus complex with the autobiographical information given in his own dream samples in the book. The rewriting of Freud's dreambook in the context of the emergence of the psychoanalytic movement is analyzed extensively in Marinelli/Mayer (2000). 5 Only few historians of psychoanalysis have so far discussed Freud's self-analysis as a technical procedure. For a notable exception, see the study of Schott (1985). 3 During the nineteenth century, various modes of self-observation were cultivated, both in scientific milieus and in everyday life of the literate classes, leading to the genesis of new forms of writing about subjectivity.6 It has to be noted, however, that the initial version of Freud's book - as it was published in the fall of 1899 - was to a large extent directed at a very special audience, namely professionals who worked towards a psychology grounded upon pathological observation and experimentation. This intention is expressed in the opening sentence of Freud's short introduction (Vorbemerkung) to the first edition: "I have attempted in this volume to give an account of the interpretation of dreams; and in doing so I have not, I believe, trespassed beyond the sphere of interest covered by neuropathology." (Freud 1900b: xxiii) Given that the professional readers who were guided by an interest in a psychology founded on neuropathological practice regarded introspection as a problematic and doubtful method, this hesitant style of opening the book does not come as a surprise. Freud himself received his initial training as a neuropathologist in a clinical culture where the preferred method of experimentation was the induction of hypnotic states in patients and the subsequent observation of their symptoms or actions. Experimental hypnotism as practiced at the Paris hospital La Salpêtrière by Jean-Martin Charcot and his students stood in sharp contrast to procedures of self-observation required by the psychoanalytic method as presented in The Interpretation of Dreams. In fact, Freud's assertion that "the situation is in fact more favourable in the case of self-observation than in that of other people" (Freud 1900b: 105) seems to constitute a complete break with former practices which he employed as a hypnotist, following first the lead of Charcot and than of his opponent Hippolyte Bernheim, in collaboration with his Viennese colleague Josef Breuer. In the following, I will give a different account of the introduction of Freud's self-analysis by restoring some of the ramifications in the medical culture of hypnotism in the 1890s.

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