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BOOK REVIEW

Karl Abraham: Life and Work, a Biography, by Anna Bentinck van Schoonheten, Karnac, 2016.

Reviewed by John Nuttall

In an illuminating foreword Brett Kahr (p. xvii) writes, “By taking time to engage fully with this book one feels stimulated, enhanced, educated, and treated to a real ‘master class’ in history, theory, and technique.” Its struc- ture and style will keep you captivated until you sadly come to its end. The book arrived unexpectedly, and quite coincidentally, as I was preparing lectures on Klein and Jung, involving some history of the early psychoana- lytic movement. I was fascinated by this rather attractive book about a man who had close connections with both these pioneers. As I reviewed the long list of chapters, and leafed through, I gathered a sense of the first days of , its fragility, and the character of its initial “secret com- mittee” of pioneers, in which Abraham was prominent. The usual comple- ment of early black and white photographs aided this ambience. In the Introduction, the author describes her growing interest in this man she clearly became enamoured with, asserting that at the end of his life “he had the most important leadership role in the world of psychoanalysis after Freud” (p. xxiii). Accordingly, the chapter headings are descriptors of key events in psychoanalysis as much as events in Abraham’s life. The author presents extant material as evidence, but also covers intriguing questions about gaps in his life, helping to place him more fully in his social milieu. It is supported by extensive notes and a list of sources following the main text. She presents him as attractive, cheerful, polite and friendly, steadfast and sanguine. The picture is of a life full of limitations and turbulence, and yet one of determination, integrity, and potential. Chapter Twenty-eight, titled “Abraham’s death” starts with the subheading, “The year 1925 began promisingly”, but anxiety about his health grew through the year, while some of his colleagues continued to take him for granted. This discourse, of a promising life, pervades the book, until the last two pages of this chap- ter, when the author announces “over the course of November Abraham became ill again” (p. 308). The following paragraphs left this reader with mild feelings of grief that he should die on Christmas Day of that year, at the age of only forty-eight. Throughout the book there is an erudite interplay of sources from archives, letters, relatives’ accounts, institutional records, and biographies,

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making the reader feel in conversation with the material, despite the occa- sional odd paragraphing. Chapter One covers Abraham’s early childhood in and the political turmoil of the times. The author presages events in her mention of anti-Semitism, of Abraham’s mild asthma, his over-concern for his mother, his fearlessness, and his linguistic bent. Chapter Two recounts his medical student years at Wurzburg and Freiburg, and his growing interest in mountaineering. Here is a good example of the author checking links that set the broader scene of Abraham’s life. She found he did not join the local Jewish student society, placing this into the context of anti-Semitic feeling in the student population of the time. Chapters Three and Four describe Abraham’s growing interest in psychia- try in and his involvement with social issues, through which he met his wife, Hedwig. The author gives an intriguing account of the Burghölzli Clinic in Zurich and Abraham’s appointment there in 1904. She describes his life at the clinic with some interesting insights into Jung’s character, and develops a fascinating interpretation of Abraham’s fearless nature as a derivative of unconscious feelings of guilt in relation to his mother. Chapter Five opens with a startling thought: “nowadays, it is almost impossible to believe that in 1907, at the age of fifty-two, Freud was virtu- ally unknown” (p. 39). The author elaborates Abraham’s role in what she calls the “Freud, Jung, Abraham triangle” and delves into the content of Jung’s correspondence with Freud about Abraham. She accuses Jung of being overly possessive of Freud, a jealousy that grew when Abraham moved to Berlin and visited Freud in December 1907. This chapter exam- ines the rivalry between Jung and Abraham, the initial skirmishes of which Abraham seems to have lost. This bitterness comes into relief with the account of the first psychoanalytic congress in Salzburg, 1908 (Chapter Six). The author presents multiple views of the turmoil created by Freud’s encouragement of both Abraham and Jung to address the same subject, dementia praecox. Jung later accused Abraham of plagiarism, but some believe Freud acted as “an agent provocateur surreptitiously goading Jung . . . that he had a serious rival in Abraham” (p. 56; Kuhn, 2000, p. 711). The author exposes the characters of those involved, especially Freud’s, whose need for an ideal was constantly sabotaged by his own towards his admirers. However, Freud’s friendship ultimately seems indubitable by 1920, when he helped purchase bicycles for Abraham’s children (p. 197). Chapter Seven elaborates Abraham’s development as a psychoanalytic pioneer in both theoretical and organisational aspects. She gives a fasci- nating account of how, “in the early years in Berlin, psychoanalysis was almost a family affair” (p. 71), with meetings of the newly-formed Berlin Psychoanalytic Society meeting in Abraham’s house. Interesting snippets of history appear: its early members, such as Bloch and Hirschfeld, are 10-BookRev_123-127_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 20/02/2017 13:37 Page 125

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highlighted, with the author declaring that in those days, “it was more a sexological than a psychoanalytic group” (p. 65). The accounts of the early relationships of what would become the “secret committee” and the even- tual “smoking out of Jung” (p. 121) make fascinating reading, and the author declares that “it grew into a cabal” (p. 124) controlling psycho- analysis for many years. The middle section of the book describes Abraham’s progress as a theoretician in chapters covering his analysis of the artist Segantini and the Pharaoh (Amenhotep IV) both of which illuminate his developing views on the place of ambivalence in early childhood; views that set the course for the advance of object rela- tions theory. The author catches it, “In fact Abraham spent all his psycho- analytic working life expanding and refining his theory on depression” (p. 153). Cementing these developments are accounts of his daily life, rev- olution in , and the turmoil of the First World War. Chapter Seventeen, “The congress in Budapest of 1918”, describes the effects of the war on . It was Abraham’s first congress after becom- ing president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, at which many elaborated a theory of war neurosis. However, Freud emerged with new ideas, later expounded in his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud, 1920g). Chapter Eighteen gives a sense of the continuing unrest in Berlin and the “downright dangerous years of the ” (p. 181). Abraham’s health began to suffer in this period when he developed chronic bronchi- tis, an illness that affected him much of his life. Nevertheless, with finan- cial support from Eitingon, and Freud’s encouragement, the Berlin Polyclinic was opened in 1920. The author says, “Freud foresaw—and cor- rectly so—that the conscience of society would one day awaken and poor people would be given a right to psychiatric help” (p. 178), an issue that still haunts psychotherapy, at least, in the UK (Lees, 2016). The following chapters consider the progress of the psychoanalytic movement in the con- text of the post-war years and the remnant animosity. In deference to this Abraham gave a speech in Latin at the congress in The Hague in 1920. Here Abraham expounded his theories on female castration and “aroused the ire” of , and intrigued, at least, , who attended as a recently elected member of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society. Chapter Twenty is significant as it highlights the debate about lay analy- sis and the start of the on-going problem of making a living as a psy- chotherapist outside of the established professions. By 1920, several non-medical individuals had undergone training and were finding it diffi- cult to make ends meet. Abraham seemed opposed to lay therapists and, interestingly, this chapter is followed by one that discusses Abraham’s elu- cidation of the anal character. It also mentions the publication of his book 10-BookRev_123-127_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 20/02/2017 13:37 Page 126

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Clinical Contributions to Psychoanalysis 1907–20 (Abraham, 1921), which received praise from Freud and others (p. 209). The following chapters describe the hardships of living in the years of the Weimar Republic, but also of the growing tension in the movement leading to the Berlin Congress in 1922. It was the last that Freud attended, where he discussed a new structure of the mind called (Freud, 1923b), which “was to mark a major upheaval in psychoanalysis” (p. 220). Abraham gave a lecture introducing what was to become his magnum opus—A Short Study of the Development of the Libido, Viewed in the Light of Mental Disorders (Abraham, 1924); and the ideas within this are expertly reviewed in Chapter Twenty-five. Chapter Twenty-three describes how the Berlin Polyclinic became a centre for the training of psychoanalysts from all over Europe. A course lasting eighteen months was introduced and, “Ultimately, it became the Berlin model . . . that would be emulated all over the world” (p. 225). The book reviews people such as, Franz Alexander, , the Balints, Melanie Klein, , and , who were all associ- ated with the Berlin Polyclinic. Chapter Twenty-four describes the techni- cal naivety of the early practitioners and the fears of revealing their technique in case it was labelled “wild psychoanalysis” (p. 234). The author elucidates this controversy, the developments in practice that resulted partly from the sudden influx of new blood and partly from Freud’s new thinking, and the consequent rise of . The next two chapters highlight Abraham’s relationship with two significant psychoanalytic theorists— and Melanie Klein. Rank’s naivety and manic-depressive tendencies are illuminated along with Abraham’s reservations of Rank’s The Trauma of Birth (Rank, 1929). Sibling rivalry between members of the secret committee is amply illus- trated as it reached a crescendo on Rank’s departure for the USA in 1925, and the author unpacks why “Abraham was so negatively portrayed by several authors regarding the Rank affair” (p. 274). The book describes how good relations with Freud were restored following these difficulties and the key role Abraham played in the continuing success of the Berlin Polyclinic. Abraham’s pivotal role in the advance of becomes clear in the account of Klein’s work in Berlin. Contrary to Grosskurth’s assumptions about Klein’s casework, this author asserts that most of Klein’s work with children was undertaken in Berlin with the help of Nelly Wolffheim’s day nursery (p. 284). This chapter (Twenty-four) concludes with a vigorous analysis of the similarities and differences between Klein and Abraham, “defining the points on which Klein obvi- ously took her inspiration from Abraham” (p. 289). It is sad that a person with so much dedication, interest, and insight in his chosen career should die of something as simple as a throat and chest 10-BookRev_123-127_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 20/02/2017 13:37 Page 127

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infection probably caused by swallowing a fishbone. As the author states, “these were the day before antibiotics” (p. xxii). His last difficult year is a somewhat desperate ending in which he seems to have fallen out with Freud, and resorted frantically to Fliess’s numerological interpretations to explain his physical plight. In the final chapter, the author writes of the “upheaval” that followed his death. It had a lasting and profound effect on Freud, and caused chaos in the Berlin psychoanalytic community. The secret committee lost cohesion, Abraham’s immediate family had to seek an income, but survived, emigrating to England in 1933. Freud wrote in his obituary Integer vitae scelerisque purus (p. 310; Freud, 1926b) and this book portrays Karl Abraham as blameless and pure of intent. It is difficult not to be persuaded by the author’s admiration and respect for this man, who despite his own positive outlook, recognised his own and humanity’s more aggressive instincts.

REFERENCES

Abraham, K. (1921). Klinische Beitrage zur Psychoanalyse aus den Jahren 1907– 1920 (Clinical Contributions to Psychoanalysis, 1907–1920). Internationale Psychoanalytische Bibliothek, 10. Zurich: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. Abraham, K. (1924). A short study in the development of the libido, viewed in the light of mental disorders. Selected Papers (pp. 418–501). London: Hogarth Press. Freud, S. (1920g). Beyond The Pleasure Principle. S.E., 18: 1–64. London: Hogarth. Freud, S. (1923b). The Ego And The Id. S.E., 19: 1–66. London: Hogarth. Freud, S. (1926b). Karl Abraham. S.E., 20: 272–278. London: Hogarth. Kuhn, P. (2000). A scandal in Salzburg. Or Freud’s surreptitious role in the 1908 Abraham-Jung dispute. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 81: 705–731. Lees, F. J. (2016). The Future of Psychological Therapies. London: Routledge. Rank, O. (1929). The Trauma of Birth. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.