The Young Freud's Letters to Eduard Silberstein—Early Traces of Some Psychoanalytic Concepts

Abstract

Conci M. The Young Freud's letters to Eduard Silberstein-Early Traces of Some Psychoanalytic Concepts. Int Forum Psychoanal 1992;1:37-43. Stockholm. ISSN 0803-706X

The author, after showing the importance of Freud's letters to E. Silberstein, in terms of retracing the roots of psychoanalysis to the young Freud's inner world, takes into consideration not only the relationship between the two members of the “Academia Castellana”, but also the young Sigmund's emotional vicissitudes in relation to his first love, Gisela Fluss. The hypothesis originally formulated by K. Eissler, according to which sublimation played a major role in the young Freud's psychic balance, finds further confirmation in these letters to Silberstein. This allows the author to bring back to Freud's emotional vicissitudes not only his later concept of female sexuality, but also his conceptualization of the analyst as a “blank screen”. On the basis of the route take in in this paper, the author suggests to give more attention to the relationship between our personal world and the technique we use with our patients.