Acknowledgement of
Error in Seductive Mirage
On the basis of perceived
inconsistencies and improbabilities in Freud's paper 'A Case of Paranoia
Running Counter to the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Disease' (1915, S.E.: XIX, 261-272),
I questioned the authenticity of the brief case history he recounts therein.
However, Richard Skues and Anthony Stadlen directed my attention to a letter from Karl Abraham
to Freud in November 1915 in which there is a reference to a 'short communication'
to which the editors append a footnote identifying this as the paper in
question. In the letter Abraham writes that he was 'familiar with the case',
which Freud had told him about 'in the winter before the war' (A
Psycho-Analytic Dialogue, eds. H. Abraham and E. Freud, Hogarth
Press, 1965: 231). In addition, one of the perceived inconsistencies (Esterson, 1998: 102) was the result of mistranslation by
James Strachey. It was a serious error of judgement
on my part that I failed to check the translation in the given circumstances.
Though I think there is much which is dubious about the case history, it is
evident that my surmise that it was fabricated is erroneous. I should add that
I immediately informed my editor at
My grounds for suspicion were twofold.
It is known that Freud fabricated an individual in his 1900 'Screen Memories'
paper (Esterson, 1993: 95-96). (Jones reports that
to prevent the subterfuge from being exposed, Freud omitted a passage in The
Interpretation of Dreams when it was reprinted in 1925 for the complete
edition of his works. The 'Screen Memories' paper was reprinted in the same
edition, and the dream book contained material which revealed that the supposed
acquaintance in the former was Freud himself [Jones, E., Sigmund Freud:
Life and Work, Hogarth, 1953: 28].) In addition,
Swales has adduced compelling circumstantial evidence that Freud also fabricated
an alleged acquaintance (who, as Swales demonstrates, bears an uncanny resemblance
to Freud himself) in his account of the 'aliquis' episode in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
(Esterson, 1993: 97-9; Swales, P., 'Freud, Minna Bernays, and the Conquest
of Rome', New American Review, Spring/Summer, 1982: 1-23). I have also
adduced what I believe is considerable circumstantial evidence that indicates
that Freud may have invented a crucial event (and possibly an individual)
supposedly recalled by the Wolf Man from infancy (Esterson,
1993: 77-93). (This supposed recollection of an infantile 'sexual scene' was
[Freud claimed] recovered after four years of treatment and its belated arrival
provided him with the 'solution' to the patient's childhood neurosis, thereby
enabling him to complete the case history as a polemical contribution to his
dispute with Jung and Adler [ibid.: 86-9].) Again, as I noted above, Mahony has demonstrated that the Rat Man case history contains
'intentional confabulation' and 'serious discrepancies' (see also Esterson, 1993: 62-67). And, as I have shown in the above
contribution (and also in Esterson, 1998), there
is a considerable amount of invention in Freud's retrospective accounts of
the seduction theory episode.
Then the 1915 'Paranoia' case history itself
contains some dubious material. Completely independently, Wilcocks has drawn attention to an inconsistency which leads
him to write that at one point 'Freud is lying' (Wilcocks,
1994: 38). He also describes the paper as 'this gem of deception', a 'Victorian
mystery novelette', in which is revealed 'a whole bag of rhetorical tricks'
(ibid.: 38, 36, 55 n.16). While this is not evidence of fabrication,
it nevertheless indicates that there are grounds for believing that Freud
was by no means straightforward in his presentation of the case. It was this
feature of the case history, together with the other known or suspected instances
of invention, that tempted me to surmise (incorrectly)
that Freud may have resorted to fabrication here. Nevertheless, none of this
is extenuation for my failure to take sufficient steps to ascertain in regard
to the two items referred to above that the evidence I adduced was authentic,
or for my consequent surmising so far beyond the actual evidence.
I would like to emphasise that the
essential foundations of my critique of Freud do not depend on his probity, but
revolve around the following three points:
First, Freud's mode of presentation obscures
the extent that the material of his analyses emanates from himself (in the
form of interpretations and reconstructions), and not from his patients. (See Esterson, 1993: 166-168.)
Second, even employing the most liberal
criteria for judging the validity of Freud's work, most of the interpretations
and reconstructions which he claims to have corroborated his theories do not
deserve to be taken seriously.
Third, he presented his own conjectures
as if they constituted 'findings of analysis', e.g., virtually all the infantile
psychosexual developmental material in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
(1905) and in his later writings in which he applied his Oedipal notions to
early childhood. (See Esterson,
1993: 33-5; 133-151.) To this may be added that the case histories
(the only material we have for assessing how Freud supposedly confirmed his
theses) are apparently untrustworthy. The only case for which we have Freud's
original case notes (he destroyed the others) is that of the Rat Man. Here
is what Patrick Mahony (who is a lay analyst and
sympathetic towards Freud) has to say as a result of his close examination
of the two texts (original record and case history): 'My book pointed out
Freud's intentional confabulation and documented the serious discrepancies
between Freud's day-to-day process notes of the treatment and his published
case history of it' (Amer. J. Psychiatry, 147:8, August 1990, p. 1110).
Allen Esterson
(Acknowledgement of error
originally posted
on 12th February, 1998.)