Psychoanalysis, Sex and American Culture

Psychoanalytic Journals, 1912/13

International Journal of Psycho-analysis English-language journal, 1920-

BELLEVUE ASYLUM

KREUZLINGENSWITZERLAND

c. 1900

Psychoanalytic Clinic, Berlin 1920

Melanie Klein

Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jungat Clark University

Back row (L to R: A. Brill, E. Jones and Sandor Ferenczi

Freud’s Visit to Clark University Worcester, Mass September 1909

Freud’s Telegram, 1909

Boston School of Psychotherapy Morton Prince James Jackson Putnam

Painted by John Singer Sargent, 1890s

“Journal of Abnormal Psychology” 1906

Richard Kraft von Ebing (1840-1902)

PSYCHOPATHIASEXUALIS (1886)

Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)

Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1910)

Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sex Characteristics (1894)

Sexual Inversion (1897)

Freud’s Essay on Sexuality (1905)Divided libido, or sexual drive into three aspects:

1. the impulse (operative in perversions, but also psychoneuroses—diseases of repression).

2. the object (the homosexual didn’t differ from others as to drive, but as to object)

3. the origin or body part involved in impulse--explains use of fetish)

Conclusion: That everyone was somewhat perverse—as a result of universal sexual impulse.

American Psychoanalytic Societies

• American Association of Psychoanalysis, 1911.

• New York Psychoanalytic Society,1911 (15 founding physicians).

• NY Psychoanalytic Society: all analysts must have analysis with a competent analyst, 1923.

• NY Psychoanalytic Society decreed practitioners must be physicians, 1924.

Early American Psychoanalysts• James Jackson Putnam—neurologist

(Boston)

• Isador Coriat (Boston) psychoanalysis and literature

• William Alanson White (head of St. Elizabeth’s, Wash DC) stressed social and environmental causes of mental illness

• Smith Ely Jelliffe (New York)

• A.A. Brill (New York) translated Freud’s work in the 1910s

St. Elizabeth’s hospitalWilliam Alanson White

Psychoanalysis American-Styleearly 20th century

• All mental disorders (except with definite somatic causes), were interpreted according to model of psychoneuroses (e.g. hysteria, obsessions).

• Caused by conflicts between wishes (results of instinctual drives) and internal repression

• Causes traced back to early childhood, usually sexually tinged family relationships

• Sexuality most important instinctual drive• Psychoanalysis was to overcome resistances of

patient• Dominance of Ego psychology--focus on

adaptation of ego to social demands, rather than Id psychology (repressed desires).

Freud’s Draft of a 1926 Encyclopedia Britannica Entry

“Some Elementary Lessons inPsychoanalysis”

Manuscript DivisionLibrary of Congress

Max Eastman, socialisteditor of The Masses, 1913,on socialism and the arts.

in analysis with:Smith Ely Jelliffeeditor of Journal of Nervous

and Mental Disease, 1902

Developed extensive psychoanalytic practice, NYCcoined term “psychosomatic”

Interpreted Eastman’s neurosis as result of “hostility to the father working itself out in prejudiced radicalism”

Mabel Dodge Luhansalon hostessIn Greenwich Village,NYC for socialactivists and artists.

In analysis with:A.A. Brill &Smith Ely Jelliffe

serialized her ownpsycho-analysis for theHearst newspapers 1917-1918

André Tridon, Psychoanalysis and Love

1922

“In the searching light of that most curious and interesting new method, psychoanalysis, the soul of love is laid bare “

Mrs. Marden’s Ordeal 1916

by James Hay

“That a warped childhood is to contribute in later years to a

warped and tragic womanhood.”

( p. 271)

“You will have to tell me all things…This is to be an analysis of your soul, of the depths of your soul. You will have to tell me what you believe about religion, the most intimate things about your life with your husband, the big things and the little things, sex things and all. You may keep nothing back from me. In this way only can we analyze your soul and see in what way it has gone wrong…You see, you suffer, not because you are sick, but because you are unhappy.”

the Psychoanalyst, in Mrs. Marsden’s Ordeal, p. 5.

1955

More on Psychoanalysis and Culture

• Nathan Hale, Freud and the Americans: The beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876-1917 (Oxford, 1971)

• Nathan Hale, The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis: Freud and the Americans, 1917-1985 ( Oxford, 1995)

• Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A social and cultural history of psychoanalysis (NY: Vintage Books, 2005)

• George Makari, Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis ( NY: Harper, 2008)