Being such important case studies, later analysts would unearth from them what
Freud could not see in the early 20th century. Patrick Mahony analyzed some of
what was missing in The Cries of the Wolf Man based on more current
discoveries, just like he did in his huge review of the "Ratman." In those days,
again, women were often not emphasized as much as men for their influence on
a child's upbringing.
Freud was also working through his own situation with
homosexual libido at around that time with his split with Wilhelm Fliess. In a
letter to Sandor Ferenczi Freud wrote that...
It was also known that Sigmund slept in
his parents quarters and was more likely to witness his parents having sex rather than his patient.
Mahony further describes the improbability of the
primal scene, and that the child with malaria was able to watch the parents
having sex for a long period of time, even if he were only in the room once.
The angle of seeing the genitals from the cot would also be improbable.
Here the rapproachment subphase
he is talking about, is the age when the child has to start to feel
comfortable doing some things on his or her own. Like the mutual admiration
society described earlier, prematurely believing in success can fool both
the therapist and patient. Mahony adds that ...
Ironically, Freud was studying
Narcissism at this time but all he saw was genital narcissistic masculinity
rebelling against femininity. A big possible miss comes from the former
director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, after Kurt Eissler, Jeffrey Masson, who
found unpublished material that could be of use to the case study. In his
controversial The Assault on Truth, he was...
His discovery unfortunately doesn't provide which family member it was and so it remains
floating in the possibilities of interpretation. Was it a parent, a sibling,
or a caretaker? Freud did acknowledge sexual abuse in childhood, but he focused
more on frustrated wishes, precisely because not all victims end up with
psychological problems after abuse. A more balanced view that looks at both
abuse and frustrated wishes would help, and if Serge had that dealt with in the
analysis with Freud, it certainly would have been more insightful. In the end
Mahony found Brunswick's analysis too timid to break with Freud's orthodox analysis.
Mahony speculates that this could have been seen as a rejection to Serge because...
Then with Freud's death, his wife's suicide,
and Ruth's untimely death, he would eventually have to find others to rely on.
By the time Serge was interviewing with Karin Obholzer, he was seeing
Kurt Eissler and possibly Dr. Wilhelm Solms. Mahony researched the background
to those interviews.
Despite the positive overtones of the Psychoanalysts, Psychoanalysis has always
been under a lot of criticism, and Serge was the longest living patient of Freud's.
He would provide a lot of material to analyze after so many
treatments. The last part of Serge's life until his death included continued
communication with psychoanalysts and an interview with an agnostic journalist,
Karin Obholzer. It was very interesting to see the two
sides of the Wolfman case. From the point of view of a psychologically untrained journalist,
Karin was able to see Serge without the lens of psychoanalysis and
to be able to notice how little he changed for an average person. Any
unknown biological sources of pathology would continue to manifest in front of her.
Yet, from the point of view of psychoanalysts, they are the ones trained
to treat patients and are able to see more depth than Karin was able to. It's
very easy when reading these books to get emotional and take sides, because
it's a human life in the balance. Karin would not be able to analyze Serge's
defenses and break through them. She had to take him at his word. Psychoanalysis
would develop into different traditions, including Object-Relations and Self-Psychology.
Reviews of later psychoanalysts could see what Freud did right
and wrong and add further understanding from more recent clinical observations.
After all these years of treatment, how much improvement should Serge have noticed?
Also, at his advanced age of 86, how much would he remember for an interview?
Despite all that help from Freud and other Psychoanalysts, Serge remained skeptical
at the end of his life.
One of the interesting sticking points for Serge
was the endless debate about choice and determinism.
Even though Freud was mostly of the opinion of determinism, he still talked
about choice.
The difficulty for therapists is how to generate desire
in people to change, and certainly Freud and others tried.
Serge went on explaining how he
"worshiped" Freud and how Freud was a replacement to a disappointing father
who preferred his sister instead. When his father died, Freud would be able to
use a much stronger transference in therapy, and suggestions would be much
easier to be adopted. Serge then talked about the difficulty of affording
treatment, and how psychology is much better than it used to be. His big
concern about psychotherapy was the false promise of happiness after an
analysis, and the unexpected dependence on analysts.
The quote Obholzer referred to was from Ernest Jones who took the situation too literally.
Thankfully Mahony referenced the original letter from Freud writing to
Sandor Ferenczi about a transference insult he received from Serge:
Whether Serge forgot the transference or it never happened, at his age during
the interview it's hard to verify. Certainly it's possible there was an
anal obsession with Freud doing the analysis. At this point it's good to
bring in more modern understandings of obsession and homosexuality.
A lot of conflict between people regarding sexuality is based on phobias and
compulsive thoughts. When someone looks at someone else, they don't only look, the
brain assesses imitatively if it identifies with the pleasure that person
looks for. People forget that their desire or distaste is their own.
For those who obsess, compulsions can happen just from looking at someone or thinking
about content that adds to obsession. Freud in particular is a psychoanalyst
that talks a lot about obsession and homosexuality.
When obsession goes to an extreme it turns into what modern therapists call
Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (HOCD). Certainly with so much emphasis on
sexuality and sexual orientation in Freud's insights, it's easy for people to
obsess about how they dress, how they hold themselves and think
"is that unconsciously gay?" Phobias and stereotypes can easily develop if you
are constantly looking for signs. The human mind has many parts to it and it's
capable of imitating emotions of others, just like you see in TV shows, movies, and
even singing karaoke and singing along
and concerts are great examples of
mimetics. You can imitate being the singer and it creates some emotions of
validation, and identity, but this short-term imitation, that can turn into
an obsession, is shallow compared to being the actual person. There are more
piano notes to being in a long-term homosexual relationship where you are in
love with your partner and desire to have regular sex with them, but where you
also have deep intimate conversations and long-term joint projects. People can
be confused by imitation, identification and compulsions to act. With OCD, the
intrusive thoughts are very powerful. It may seem funny to many people, but it
actually affects a lot of people, and if they can't get out of their thoughts/images
and into the sensations of their body, they can have doubts about their
sexual orientation for long periods of time. 
Monnica Williams did an
excellent review of this type of OCD. In general, with OCD...
An example of how extreme it can get is an OCD
patient Monnica describes.
So this is important for Freudian psychoanalysts who are comfortable with bisexuality, but their
patients are not, and also have OCD, especially if they are
undiagnosed. Another example is of a 20 year old male masturbating to see which
pornography creates the largest pleasure.
Of course this doesn't only affect men.
Like with most OCD, the treatments involve tackling the logic of obsessive thoughts.
Fred Penzel, from the International OCD Foundation, provides some tips for resisting checking behaviour.
The problem with checking behaviour is that it can become addictive because of the relief. Yet the relief doesn't last because doubts keep
returning because it's hard to be absolute about fuzzy areas like sexual orientation,
and certainly having other non-professionals suggest your
orientation is to give them too much power. One has to develop skepticism
of people who rattle off suggestions that "your clothes are gay, your interests
are gay, you saw gay pornography, that means you're gay, you had thoughts about
being gay, then you're gay." You can reverse it to see how unscientific those
suggestions are. "Your clothes are straight, your interests are straight, you
saw straight pornography, that means you're straight, you had thoughts about
being straight, then you're straight." Another area of healing can come from
exposure therapy, where you actually entertain more ideas of homosexuality to
face your phobias. Now this isn't a checking obsession, these are actually
attempts to learn. Depending on how serious the compulsions are, a patient
has to be ready to deal with the anxiety. This includes...
As an aside, on the checking behaviour with pornography,
people need to be aware of how much disgust towards any sex is held back in
things like pornography. Just like in advertising, all undesirable details are
removed, or participants act as if undesirable details are desirable to get
the brain to imitate. As long as participants look like they're having a
good time, the brain wants to imitate pleasure. This habit can sneak into areas
that require more authenticity. Long-term sexual relationships require a lot of
love, caring, and concern. Most of these things are missing from pornography. The
relationship template the brain is learning from in pornography is based on
what's left out. This isn't to bash pornography but much of it leaves out
long-term relationships, envy, jealousy, STIs, and relationship skills. Lust also
ets boring. What is attractive at the beginning in a relationship can become
quite boring after a certain amount of time. Long-term relationships have
passion, love and interest that doesn't fizzle as easily. Having gay or lesbian
sex without the human connection that goes beyond a sexual connection is too
superficial to be full sexual orientation.
Pornography is not a good example for people to decide what their sexual
orientation is. At most it can help condition an appreciation of the same
sex in terms of lust, but it doesn't condition romantic love and relationship
skills because those things are absent in most pornography. The piano notes of a
loving long-term relationship have a lot more variety than sex addiction, and like
any addiction, overemphasizing one note is all about short-term quick relief to
regulate the emotions, just like alcohol and other substances.
If boredom rules addiction and it requires more novelty and intensity then in the
example of relationships, long-term relationships would be boring
and partners would have to be exchanged constantly. What people with different
sexual orientations are fighting for in claiming equal rights is much more than just sex.
Outside of sexual orientation, a person has to look beyond needing a
response from society or authority figures to bless a relationship, and one
has to get to a point as if you and your partner are on your own, making your own
decisions, without needing validation from others
and to be able to feel relaxed, comfortable and happy. This is actually
a difficult thing to do. To look at actual relationships and actual objects for
their actual value, without needing validation, and agreement from others is
an advanced level of intrinsic motivation. Many people want what they
want and demand that everyone agree with them, even if opinions from others are
irrelevant. A lot of the high people get is on
social validation and it can distort any individual's decision making strategies,
and is a huge source of conflict internally and externally. People want
you to agree with their religion, philosophy, sexual orientation, and
cultural habits. Rewards and punishments constantly steer the mind away from
authentic choices. To mind your own business
and live your own life actually takes a lot of courage, but the reward is
psychological freedom and independence.
Of course this mistake of needing help from authority figures to work out
sexual orientation also happened in Freud's time and he was also implicated
in those mistakes. Serge wasn't the only one that became a ward of psychoanalysis,
and this can happen in any modality where the therapist receives a parental
transference respect from the patient. Freud over emphasized unconscious
homosexuality in a way that helped but he was too omnipotent to understand
how unbending many sexual orientations are. He eventually figured it out, but it
didn't start off that way. The Frink Fiasco was almost as bad as what
happened with Emma Eckstein. Horace Frink was a former analysand of Freud's and he
impressed him enough to have Horace selected as Freud representative in
America. Frink was having an affair with the
banking heiress Angelika Bijur, and Freud suggested that Frink was in love
with her and should divorce his wife, which he had two children with. After the
divorces and the new marriage to Bijur, Frink's mental health deteriorated with
feelings of guilt. His depression and anger increased with accusations that
his new wife was ugly and looked like a man or a pig. Freud responded...
Freud was in the dangerous position that most psychologists face, which is how to
make money and follow ethics. The pressure to have famous successful cases
pushes people to take short-cuts, and is always an influence therapists have to
ignore to protect their patients. Frink himself was now stuck analyzing patients
for the needed money, even as he started losing faith in psychoanalysis.
His ongoing fights with Angelika resorted to blows and she filed for
divorce. Freud was forced into having to dismiss
Frink from leadership in America, and it turned into a resentment that Freud had
against his followers in the United States. Frink continued to deteriorate,
including two suicide attempts, leading to an admission in a sanatorium.
Now on Freud's side, he wasn't responsible for Frink's affairs, but
psychological suggestions are dangerous, partly because it's actually hard to be
a therapist and avoid suggestions, but this is also compounded when important
individuals in family relationships are left out of the analysis.
Angelika's ex-husband Abraham asserted himself in a letter to Freud that should
be an example to all therapists who should think before they offer any
suggestions, especially match-making suggestions.
found great doctor are you savant or
charlatan this is just as much a problem
his is just as much a problem today as it was then. Going back to the concern of the 'Ratman'
Ernst Lanzer, Patrick Mahony said...
This is a great example for budding therapists to study before they
start the profession. Blame, as is known in the court system, can be accurate, but
it also can conflate all the problems that a person has onto a scapegoat and
therapists can be scapegoated. Both the therapist and the patient have to take
on their own responsibilities for making decisions. Patients need to find second
opinions, and if they are capable of agency, they should be doing their own
research. The challenge for therapists is to make sure the client knows that
psychology is not a magic wand that will make you rich and find the perfect
spouse. Psychologists are not experts in every field of life, and suggestions
outside of their expertise must be looked at with skepticism. Many things
are uncertain, and in a world where people glorify intuition, it can be as
dangerous as a random guess. Daniel Kahneman describes when intuition works best...
What this basically says is that you can only trust intuition when
you know a lot about something. The best attitude to have in therapy is to be
skeptical of all intuitions until the patient's family and friends are
understood very well. Even then, there will be mistakes, so an emphasis that
people have to take responsibility for themselves instead of relying on their
psychologist like they are a child dependent and the therapist is a parent,
must be communicated to the patient. The patient needs to inform themselves and
read different points of view, and if they are capable of learning a
lot about reality, and the different scientific disciplines, then they can be
independent minded enough to make their own decisions, and hopefully, if their
problem is not genetic or biological, they can let go of dependence on a saviour
therapist. For most therapists, success is when the patient doesn't need
to come back, and the ex-patient now cherishes their own research and
decision-making skills.
Jonathan Barrett from the University of Nevada, did a good review of early
conversion therapy philosophies in Psychoanalysis and how it's toxicity
split off into the United States. Freud eventually learned that...
Here he suggests that object choices are
made early in life and they are very persistent throughout life. By the time
someone is an adult and a patient, unless there is some intensity and pleasure
with either object choice, a conversion therapist is in the position of trying
to make someone straight when there isn't enough pleasure already there to
support it, and maybe even disgust towards the opposite sex. Another pitfall
is bisexual erasure, where again labels are used to block possible experiences.
Labels can be useful, but not if they repress real object choices. The actor
Alan Cumming provided a warning that repression can go in many different ways.
This statement is helpful for people who are in homosexual or heterosexual
relationships, because they don't have to pretend they don't have other desires as
well. Having those desires also doesn't mean people can't be in a committed
relationship with one person. The typical mistake is labeling someone as
homosexual or heterosexual when they are concurrently in those kind of
relationships, as if they can't carry both desires in
their mind at the same time. Accusations of bi-sexuals being greedy or cheaters
can also be put to bed. Cheating can happen in any sexual orientation.
Like in HOCD or in situations of internalized bigotry against homosexual desire in
oneself, the brain can move into self-attacking, and that's what is the
pathology. Self-hatred can inhibit at one degree but it can also become more severe
with suicidal ideation. Real therapy is to accept desires in oneself without
resorting to pathological self-recrimination. Ultimately you are
not falling in love with a category, but an individual. More important
relationship questions that are not to be overlooked are "am I in the cycle of abuse?
Do I have a habitual template to be with abusive people? What is a good relationship?"
What a successful relationship looks like, has more to do
with relationship skills, and in places like the Gottman Institute, there are so
many skills partners have to develop to achieve great long-lasting relationships.
Too much focus on sexual orientation may make one miss why you wanted to be in a
relationship in the first place. To be with people who are non-abusive and who
love and understand you. Ultimately that's what Serge was not doing. He was
moving from one influence to another. Religious influences grafted on him, but
then in the presence of an atheist he would lose belief. He was moving from
doctors to psychoanalysts, and being swept along cultural changes, but was not
able to row his own oar. In the end, Serge's template of relationships was more
important to analyze than what his sexual orientation might turn out to be.
Tragically, he learnt that too late.
Towards the end of Serge's life, his greatest weakness was choosing the wrong
relationship template. His last intimate relationship was with a women that Serge
called "Luise." This story should trigger a lot of recognition for those who know about the cycle of abuse.
Serge did continue on living and enjoyed the company of Karin, and the reader can
witness the pleasure that he enjoyed of someone just listening, mirroring and
validating him, even if it the interview was about an exposé of psychoanalysis.
Unfortunately for Serge, it was too late to make changes
and he had a circulatory collapse.
As Luise faded into the background during the last two years of his life,
Serge had that feeling that so many people feel at the end of their lives.
His strength faded and his last gesture to Karin was a heartfelt kiss on the
hand and a feeble wave before he died the next day.
Like with many other case studies of Freud, so many disorders have genetic and early life challenges as
their source. Is it OCD, Borderline and Narcissistic personality disorders,
or a severe masochistic co-dependency? Or is a mixture of all of them? Using the
the metaphor of the childhood "lucky caul," Serge was stuck inside the veil or caul
of dreams and specialness to the end, and so were his therapists who sought to
make a name for themselves. By not seeing how the sense of specialness and
entitlement would interfere with reality testing, the dreams and desires Serge had
would fail to find realistic outlets with independent and assertive
decision making, especially with choices of partners. The healthy way to attach
importance to specialness is to effort. Special effort, not entitlement. The
metaphorical veil or caul is ruminating about possibilities and dreaming about
changing the past. Being stuck in painful thoughts while remaining inactive leads
to a habit of inhibition. Serge's past may have looked like a heaven with beautiful
estates, servant women, and a sense of entitlement to a great future. It could
easily add to the sense of specialness. But when you are at the end of your life,
the memories of what actually happened can bring up the question "what if?" He
attempted to get his fortune away from Russia, but the inflationary pressures of
war diminished it. With his sister's and his wife's suicides, and possibly his
father's, the mind could easily think "what if I did this or said that? Maybe
they wouldn't have taken their lives." Once the past can't be changed, and in
the end, depression never left completely, all that was left for Serge was the
hope to "begin at the beginning once more." What motivations would he have needed to
make difference choices when he was younger? Most importantly, what was so
pathogenic that he couldn't have made better choices?
Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, in The Wolf Man's Magic Words: A Cryptonymy,
engaged in an abstract word analysis of all the players in the Serge's
psychoanalysis, and interpreted the wolf dream as the father having incest with
his daughter Anna, and Serge being a witness. The English Governess is told by
Serge what had happened and she uses it as blackmail to torture Serge and his
family. Serge then oscillated between desiring Anna and imitating her, which
would be desiring the father in the latter. He would also have knowledge that
could hurt both his parents. This theory, and it's only a theory, brings up a lot
of questions. If his father committed suicide, was it because he abused his
daughter? Was it because of the political changes he saw in Russia? Was it because
he had manic depression? Or is it a combination? Also if instead, Masson and
Brunswick were right about Serge being sexually abused, and possibly groomed to
desire anal stimulation [anally seduced], both cases could lead Serge to imitate a
passive sexual choice. If Serge felt shame about those impulses,
then his lack of self-worth and need for repression would continue. A false self
that is beyond shame would have to be developed as a protection against a
pathogenic secret. The pathogen could be an array of possibilities supported by
these theories. For example, shame over wanting to be like Anna, shame over
wanting Anna, shame over wanting his father, shame over wanting to be his
mother, and shame over wanting to give or receive anal sex. In the end, whatever
combination, it would lead ultimately to shame over socially unacceptable sexual
desires. Since this "crypt" of a false self in
Serge's mind is hiding a body of pathogenic shame, and most importantly,
it's somehow unconscious, then he did not recover because his pathogenic secret
remained a secret, even to himself. The coffin remains shut and the Russian Iistina
or hidden truth, remains hidden. If on the other hand, this secret was
conscious all along, but he did not want to share the information for obvious
reasons, he would have to take what he learned from Freud's work and heal
himself, if he didn't trust anyone else. For example, if he read and understood
Remembering, repeating and working-through, and if he could see his sexual
appetite as a worthy foundation that could go beyond a sister template, then
maybe that knowledge could help him identify with different relationship
choices and he could avoid choices like being with "Luise." To grow better crops,
so to say. In his interviews with Obholzer, he clearly identifies his sister as
an object choice, identifies Karin as a good example and even admits that if he
were younger he would pursue her. Though this could appear insulting
because his template includes an aggressive sister, women with less power,
prostitutes and "Luise." Yet reading those interviews with Karin,
even if she's aggressive with trying to land an exposé, one gets the impression
that she was desired by Serge because he enjoyed being with a woman who listened
and accepted him. She accepted his having gonorrhea and his masturbation as normal.
That made him feel better. Feeling better, meaning less stress. The stress was
caused by some pathogenic desire that he was ashamed of, whether it was a desire
for his sister or desires from one of the theories above or else something he
never communicated. Shame, we have to remember is a fear of rejection from
important social contacts. The low self-esteem made him desperate enough to
choose mostly one-night-stands, women who had little in common with him, women
with less power and prostitutes. He also chose Therese when she really needed his
help financially, after the condolence letter reintroduced them to each other.
Therese, despite being suicidal, ended up being the best woman for him and even
warned against another improper choice, which he ended up choosing. Self-esteem
becomes a necessity so you can choose people who care about you, and of course
you have to do the same for them, so that as a couple the individuals have
permission to improve themselves. Obholzer pointed out before that Serge
lacked the assertiveness to ask for what is good for him. If he wanted to look
for further methods from Freud, if he read about his letter to Ferenczi, about
how he was able to increase his ego by dropping homosexual friendship with
Fliess, it happened naturally with disenchantment. Fliess did malpractice on
Emma Eckstein's face and Freud distanced himself from him.
Serge would have to be disenchanted with his toxic relationship template before
he could find a replacement. Since so many women he was involved with didn't
want to improve themselves, he would have to be disenchanted by them
and move on, while also developing himself. There's really no reason, even
for a criminal, to not improve themselves if they believe they have a foundation
for different choices. Regardless of dream therapy and it's value, one has to
accept oneself and be disenchanted with people who don't allow that.
Who's supporting your goals for self-improvement, and who's not? Either
your biology prevents improvement, in which case you must accept, or it's just
the ideas about yourself that need to change. People have to experiment with
their choices to see what's possible for them and not rely on beliefs. With
scandals of people thinking their parents sexually abused them because of
Freudian analysis, with some cases being true, but others not, how accurate of a
method is it for courts? Like Mahony says about Abraham and Torok's theory of
father and sister incest...If some people are capable of
passing a lie detector test, and the results are not admitted in all
court systems, then certainly dreams could be open to lies and manipulation by so
many people. At best dream analysis can help the patient if convincing memories
return. They may get a relief where they are able accept what happened, grieve
and move on with their life. Phenomenology can only be accessed
through the subjective, but unless there is concrete evidence that is objectively
available, the whole process moves back onto patient and only they can
benefit, since only they can experience their memories. The reader can choose to
believe, or leave a question mark for these dream analyses.
The memories of the patient must resonate clearly with no skepticism,
otherwise it becomes a form of brainwashing where the patient has to believe.
The biggest question is that if bringing something up into consciousness
is supposed to create relief, that may not be the case. Many abuses are not in
the unconscious and the patient is very aware of what happened. They don't talk
about it because of possible stigma. For example, if the accusations from
Brunswick and Masson were true, and the abuse was conscious, who would want
to talk about how their anus was groomed to enjoy sexuality and now impulses are
being fought over with repression? Anal flashbacks that are conditioned to
repeat impulses and desire for anal pleasure, that are also conscious, would
continue to cause stress if the patient ruminates on it and what it means in an
obsessive way. When something is conscious, guilt and rumination cause
their own problems. Serge was aware of his desire for his sister, but it still
influenced him even when conscious. Some people go through horrendous abuse that
is unconscionable, but they are still able to thrive. Others go through no
abuse, or less abuse, and are psychologically compromised very easily.
There could be genetic factors with that. And finally, anybody going through two
World Wars, family suicides, and a loss of a fortune, are going to be consciously
traumatized. No therapy will bring those people back. Another area that only René Girard
tackled in a major way, is what happens if you remove your transference
to God, or imitation of Jesus? His warning is that we can just imitate the people
around us and that's exactly what happened to Serge. From an atheistic
perspective, if Serge wanted to be independent of a father figure,
then he would have to consciously not worship a God, another human being, or himself.
Now that is a difficult meditation practice! In reality most
people have a hope for a loving God, even if it's not aimed at a particular
religion, and many people have role models for success. That means social
exchanges of trust. Those social exchanges have to be done carefully to
avoid exploitation. Like Karin pointed out, if people are making suggestions for
you, you have to ask "what do I really want?" Without the ability to negotiate,
predators can take everything away from you. I like Mahony's description of how
challenging a patient like this would be for any therapist, in any modality.
