Rethinking the birth of psychoanalysis: Disconnection, censorship, and self-censorship

Abstract

Did young Freud face the horrors of little girls’ circumcision in pediatric wards? Did Freud refuse to have his sons ritually circumcised? Did Emma Eckstein, Freud’s main female patient in the course of the foundation of psychoanalysis, endure a circumcision when she was a girl? The author discusses these three controversial issues and suggests how they can help to rethink the origins of psychoanalysis. Erasing Emma Eckstein’s circumcision as a traumatic life event, Freud uprooted the birth of psychoanalysis from the ground of history, jeopardizing the possibility of Freud’s biographers and scholars providing a consistent account of his early discoveries. Yet, despite all distortions, it is still possible to restore significant connections between key historical events, from which an intrinsic legitimacy of psychoanalysis emerges, jointly with a different narration.

Key words:

• antisemitism
• brit milah
• circumcision
• castration
• Kurt Eissler
• Emma Eckstein
• Sándor Ferenczi
• Anna Freud
• Jeffrey Masson
• seduction theory
• phallus
• Max Schur

Acknowledgements

I thank Norbert Finzsch for his comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlo Bonomi

Carlo Bonomi, training and supervising analyst SIPeP-SF; President of the International Sándor Ferenczi Network