FromPsychical treatmentto psychoanalysis: Considerations on the misdating of an early Freud text and on a hitherto overlooked addition to it (here reproduced)

Abstract

Freud's early paper Psychical (or mental) treatment, first published in a family reference book for educated lay persons, was reproduced in the Gesammelte Werke with a stated publication date of 1905. This date was subsequently called into question owing to certain parts of the subject-matter (the use of hypnosis and suggestion in 'mental treatment'), and the contribution was erroneously assigned, for instance by James Strachey, to the year 1890. This error is corrected in the present paper. Furthermore, the existence of a second edition of this reference book, which contains an addition to Freud's text and appeared in 1918-19, has previously gone unnoticed. The first edition had been published in 1905-6. Freud's contribution must, however, have been written at an appreciably earlier date. The probable time of its genesis is discussed. Freud's new text is reproduced (in English translation) for the first time in an appendix to this paper.

Vicissitudes of ideas of cure in analysands and their analysts: A longitudinal interview study

“…Accordingly, the developmental path of the Oedipus complex is its “dissolution”, “destruction”, “collapse” or “disintegration” (Freud, 1924, p. 173). Simultaneously, the second, ‘constructivist’ metaphor appeared, that of psychoanalysis as “after‐education” of the neurotic (Freud, 1905a, p. 267), aiming at “the refashioning and re‐education of the entire person” (Freud, 1905b[1918/19], quoted in Fichtner, 2008, p. 841) and leading to a “newly created” state “which never does arise spontaneously in the ego” (Freud, 1937, p. 227). Eventually, this culminated in the idea of structural change, i.e.…”

“…The wish of being made whole and becoming a new person was typical for both participants. Thus, analysts typically did not share Freud’s realistic limits to the utopian aim of the “refashioning … of the entire person” (Freud, 1905b[1918/19], after Fichtner, 2008, p. 841), and could wish the analysand to transform into ‘his own self’ or ‘a living human being’. At termination, some analysts could accept that if psychoanalysis “only comes half‐way to achieving this ideal it will be amply rewarded for all the effort involved” (ibid.…”