THE ORIGINS OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS Lettersto Wilhelm Fliess, DroJtsand Tliotes: r 8 87:r9o2 bS, SIGMUND FREUD EDITED BY Marie Bonaparte,Anna Freud, Ernst Kris AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY Eric Mosbacherand JamesSnachey INTRODI-ICTION BY ErnstKris I}ASIC BOOKS, INC., PUBLISHERS itl I'r)t't{'t il ..\\'l:N uli, N liw \,()llt. .]. N. v. CONTENTS Page Editors' Note ix Numerical Table x1 lntroduction by Ernst Kris: I I. Wilhelm Fliess'sScientific Interests 3 II. Psychologyand Physiology r4 III. Infantile Sexualityand Self-Analysis 27 IV. Psycho-Analysisas an Independent Science(Eid of the Relarionshipwith Fliess) 35 Letters r-r r 5r (Draft ,,4)Problems 6q (Draft .B) The Aetiology of the Neuroses 66 I-etterrz 73 (Draft C) Reporton lfork in Progress 73 Lettersr3-r8 75 ( t)raft D) On the Aetiologyand Theory of the Major Neuroses 86 (l)raft E) How Anxiety Originates 88 I.etters r9-2o 94 (l)raft F) CollectionIII 96 I ,ctterz r roo B (Draft G) Melancholia IOI B (Draft H) Paranoia r09 Lctter zz II5 FIRST EDITION (l)raft /) Migraine: EstablishedPoints II6 I.cttcrs 4-38 II8 Copyright, 1954, by BasicBo,tks, Int. Librarl, of OongressCataloq Carl N urnber: .51-tll18 I)rirttrl in lhr Itnitrl.S/a/r.r r,f .l rttrri,u EDITORS' NOTE This book consists of a selection of letters from Sigmund F'reud to Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin physician and biologist, written between the years 1887 and r9oz. The letters, with other documents left by Fliess, came into the hands of a second-hand dealer during the Nazi period in Germany and thus into'the editors' possession.l Fliess's letters to Freud have not been found. The preliminary work of preparing the German edition for the press was done by Marie Bonaparte. The work of detailed selection rvas undertaken by Anna Freud and Ernst Kris. Ernst Kris is responsiblefor the Introduction and notes.2 The correspondence consists in all of 284 items-postcards, picture postcards, letters, notes, drafts. The selection was made on the principle of making public everything relating to the writer's scientific work and scientific interests and everything bearing on the social and political conditions in which psycho-analysis originated; and of omitting or abbreviating everything publication of which would be inconsistent with professional or personal confidence. Similarly all letters and passagesin letters have been omitted which are mere repetitions, or refer to the two correspondents' liequent appointments to meet or to their intended or actual meet- ings; as well as a good many passagesrelating to purely family matters or events in their circle of friends. The table on the next page shows the proportion of published to unpublished material. This volume contains nothing sensational, and is principally intended for the reader and serious student of Freud's published rvorks. In the Introduction and notes an attempt is made to facilitate ' l)raft I in the present volume is the property of Dr. Robert Fliess, into whose tx)sscssion it came after his father's death. He took it with him as a souvenir s'hcn hc cmigrated from Berlin to New York several years before the Fliess lrouschold was broken up. t 'l'ranslators' notes are cnclosedin square brackets t. I Editors' Note Editors' Note pub- understandingof the letters and drafts and to establishtheir connec- nor what Freud felt compelled to record about himself in his tion with Freud's contemporary and subsequent works. In the lished works reveal more than certain aspectsof his iriterests and Engtsh edition referencesto recent publications have been added, preoccupationsat the time. and the editors expresstheir gratitude to James Strachey and A. ManrB BoNapenrs AuNe Fnruo EnNsr Knts \$Tintersteinfor a number of suggestionsand corrections which Paris. London. New York. havebeen adopted. The published letters are numbered in order of date, and the TRANSLATORS' NOTE notes and drafts are designatedby letters of the alphabet. The Though the translatorsare jointly responsiblefor this volume as a letters are nearly all dated by the author, or alternativelythe date is whole, the translation of the bulk of the letters is the work of Eric postmark. In the few cases drafts establishedby the where or notes Mosbacher, while James Strachey is mainly responsible for the are undated they have been inserted by the editors in what appears "Project" at the end of the book, t*te"Drafts" and the more techni- to be the correct chronological order by reason of their contents. cal passagesin the correspondellce. They have had the advantage Omissionshave been indicated by dots. of being able,through the kindnessof Miss Anna Freud, to consult The author of the material in this volume would not have con- the original MSS. rvheredifficulties or obscuritieshave arisen. sentedto the publication of any of it. It was Freud's habit to destroy J.s. all notes and preliminary drafts as soon as they had served their E.M. purpose, publish pub- to nothing incomplete or unfinished, and to NUMERICAL TABI-E lish material of a personalnature only when it was essentialfor the nunfter of Letters,etc., here purpose of demonstratingunconscious connections. These letters Year Total etc. published. were brought to light by chance, and the editors feel justified in letters, 2 2 publishing them in spite of the hesitation which respect for the r 887 inevitably imposes. They r888 3 author's attitude in the matter amplify : the prehistory and early history of psycho-analysisin a way that no r889 ::: 2 2 other availablematerial does,provide insight into certain phasesof r 89o 2 Freud's intellectual processesfrom his first clinical impressions r89r 4 4 until the formulation of his theory, throw light on the blind alleys r892 ,7s 6 and wrong roads into which he was diverted in the process of t tt93 .: r8 9 hypothesis-building,and furnish a vivid picture of him during the r tt94 2I difficult years during which his interest shifted from physiology t l{9_5 37 29 r5 and neurologyto psychologyand psychopathology. r fl96 29 Since the publication of the German original of this volume tu97 39 tl98 2T (London, fmago Publishing Co. r95o), certain readersseem to have r 35 ft99 z6 gained the impression that the "secrets" of Freud's personal life 41 ' goo 27 r4 havenow becomeaccessible. In view of this we shouldlike to make r r7 II it clearthat the materialhere published supplements to someextent r90l go2. 3 dataon Freud'slife and experiencesfamiliar from TheInterpretation t _5 -r6& of Dreanlsand othcr works of his; but ncithcr thc lcttcrs to Fliess 284 INTRODUCTION BY ERNST KRIS I \TILHELM FLIESS'S SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS Freud's letters to Fliess give us a picture of him during the years in which he applied himself-tentatively at first-to a new field of study, psychopathology,and acquiredthe insight on which psycho- analysis,both as a theory and a therapy, is based. They enableus to see him grappling with "a problem that had never previously been stated"rl and strugglingwith an environmentwhose rejection of his work endangeredhis livelihood and that of his family; and to follow him along part of the road during his effort to deepenhis newly-acquiredinsight against the resistanceof his own uncon- sciousimpulses. The letters cover the period from 1887 to r9o2, from Freud's thirty-first to forty-sixth year, from when he had just set up in practice as a specialistin nervous and mental diseasesuntil he was engagedin his preliminary studies for Three Essayson the Theory of Sexuality. To the years of this correspondencethere belong, besideshis first essayson the neuroses,the srudies on Hysteria ( t 895d), The Inrerpretationof Dreams(rgooa), The psychopathology of EaerydayLife (rgolb), and Fragnxentof an Ana$,sisof a Caseof I lysteria(l9o5e). Itcading theseletters is rather like listeningto someonespeaking on the telephone:you can hear only what one party to the conver- srttionis saying;the restyou haveto guess.As in thiscase the listener is intcrcstedonly in rvhatis being said by the party whom he can 'f 'lrc ' plrrasc is from Studieson H1,s1s7it. Intoduction lVilhelm Fliess'sScientific Interests hear, he may at first be inclined to dismiss from his mind the speaker symptoms, as we find to be the casein Menidre's complex."l Fliess at the other end of the line. But very soon he finds he cannot follow distinguished symptoms of three different types : head pains; satisfactorily unless every now and then he reconstructs the dialogue neuralgic pains (in the arm, at the points of the shoulder-blades or as a whole. between them, in the area of the ribs or the heart, the xiphoid Freud's friendship with wilhelm Fliess (r858-1928) was, so far process, the stomach, the spleen, the small of the back in the area as we know, the closest of his life-time, and it was so closely bound of the kidneys; but "gastric neuralgias" in particular); and finally up, both as a helping and a hindering element, with the development disturbed functioning, particularly of the digestive organs, the heart of his theories in the nineties that it seems desirable to starr with a and the respiratory system. "The number of symptoms addr'rced brief outline of Fliess's scientific interests. If Fliess's letters to is great," Fliess says, "and yet they owe their existenceto one and Freud were available, w€ should be in a position, not only properly the same locality-the nose. For their homogeneity is demonstrated, to follow the exchange of ideas between the two men, but to obtain not only by their simultaneous appgarance,but by their simultaneous a reliable impression of Fliess's personality. As it is we have had to disappearance.
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