Sigmund Freud and The Forsyth Case : Coincidences and Thought-Transmission in Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud and The Forsyth Case uses newly discovered primary sources to investigate one of Sigmund Freud’s most mysterious clinical experiences, the Forsyth case. The book details Pierri’s attempts to recover the lost original case notes, which are published here for the first time, to identify the patient involved and to set the case into the broader frame of Freud’s work. Maria Pierri begins with a preliminary illustration of the case, its historical context, and how it connects to Freud’s interests in “thought-transmission,” or telepathy. The author illustrates the possibility of a psychoanalytic interpretation of the transference and countertransference elements potentially conveyed by certain “magical” coincidences during the analysis, introducing the reader to a psychopathology of everyday life of the setting. The book also explores Freud’s further investigations into thought transmission, focusing on a meeting of the Secret Committee in October 1919 and his clinical work with his own daughter Anna. Sigmund Freud and The Forsyth Case features supplementary historical materials, adding valuable insight to the context and meaning of the case. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts in practice and in training, as well as academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, spirituality, and the history of psychology. It is complemented by Occultism and the Origins of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Ferenczi and the Challenge of Thought Transference. Cover 1 Endorsements 2 Half Title 4 Series 5 Title 6 Copyright 7 Contents 8 Prologue: telepathy, superstitions and mushrooms 14 1 Coincidences of the psychoanalytic setting: a strange home visit 18 M. de Fortgibu and his plum-pudding 18 The maternal in the circumstances of the setting: the psychoanalytic clock 20 “All things are chained, knotted, in love . . . ” 23 Coincidences in analysis: sites of memory 26 Notable examples 27 From Carl G Jung 27 From Eugenio Gaddini 28 From José Bleger 29 From Joyce McDougall 30 Telepathy, an enlightening mistake 31 Freud and the “Forsyth case” 32 2 Dr Forsyth arrives in Vienna to undertake a seven-week analysis with Prof Freud 35 The decline of the West 35 Introduction to psycho-analysis: the first 28 lectures 36 Hunger in Vienna 38 Parcels from England 41 A passage to Austria 44 A piece of forgetfulness by Freud 46 3 Herr P ends his analysis with Prof Freud in a rather extraordinary way 50 New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis 50 The “Forsyth case” 51 Solve et coagula 57 The Postscript of a Preface 59 4 The duellists 63 Meeting in Zurich 63 The duellists 65 The first training analysis in Budapest 69 Forsyth, the paediatrician “once a friend of mine” 71 5 Nachträglichkeit: following the traces of a long deferral 75 Freud becomes a heretic: the debate about the “transmission of thought” within the committee 75 A mistake by Freud 78 The memorable Harzreise 79 1921, an essay in two halves 81 Vorbericht-preface 81 Nachtrag-postscript 84 1922, dreams and Telepathy 85 Perplexities, second thoughts, and experiments with Ferenczi and Anna 89 1925, section C: “The Occult Significance of Dreams” 95 Still playing for time 99 1933, Lecture XXX, “Dream and Occultism” 103 The gold coin 105 6 The disappeared-occulted manuscript 110 The posthumous publication of the Vorbericht (1921) in “Psychoanalysis and Telepathy” (1941) and the disappearance of the Nachtrag 110 Hide and seek 111 Back to Freud’s secret text: found in translation 112 7 Sigmund Freud: postscript 115 8 Manuscript details, slips, and errors 120 Conditions and details 120 Freud’s “errors” and the occulted “dritte Fall” 121 Nachträglichkeit and reconstructions 123 9 During the Great War 127 Historical and personal circumstances 127 A coming-of-age prematurely interrupted 128 Freud’s forced inactivity: the Metapsychology and the Introductory Lectures 130 Impotence and death anxiety. Towards the uncanny defeat 133 Ernest Jones’s war 139 Ferenczi’s kisses 143 10 Coincidences in Vienna: a week of fireworks in autumn 1919 151 The new orientation towards the West 151 The heart towards the East 155 11 The strange case of Dr Forsyth and Mr Vorsicht: the build-up 158 The “secret language” 158 The Man of Property 160 Setting the scene: the preconscious at work 162 Correspondences 163 The Fortsein game 164 The troublesome individual and a first repression 164 The missed appointment 164 The coincidence of the “neighbours” 165 The joke of the “home visit” 166 An ambivalent gift 167 12 The strange case of Dr Forsyth and Mr Vorsicht: the session 169 Vorsicht, forsyth, forsyte 169 The visiting card 170 The Freud-Freund slip 171 The nightmare and Jones’s monograph on the “Alptraum” 173 The faulty translations 175 13 That Forsyte Woman 179 Return to the mothers – telepathy, “distant proximity” 179 Don Giovanni: Zitto, mi pare sentire odor di femmina . . . 183 14 Retrospective: the lost scene 187 Caritas Romana: “This is the place, this is the source” 187 A destiny and a choice made long ago 190 “Little Freud”: a child is being conceived 192 Me too! 196 15 A hereditary transmission 200 A daughter is being analysed 200 Lou Andreas Salomé: a mother-sister 203 Thought transmission? A pair of twin papers 206 The father’s text 206 The daughter’s text 208 “Lifedeath” 210 “Not to be there”: the process of separation and the game of Fortsein 211 Anna, Antigone 215 16 1932: “Dreams and Occultism” and “Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child” 223 17 “Herr Vorsicht,” alias Paul Bernfeld 230 “The eldest of a family of eight or nine children” 230 The firm of Paul Bernfeld and Heinrich Rosenberg, B & R: jokes and repetitions by the preconscious 233 18 A secret in the “Preface”: the substitution of the third case 236 19 Dr David Forsyth leaves the scene and the story: circumstances of the birth of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis 240 Seven weeks in Vienna 240 The Forsyth affaire 242 Forsyth leaves the scene 247 20 Freud’s final orientation towards the West: from Vienna to London 252 “Fortsein”: Professor Freud has “gone away” 252 Fort-Da. the return: story of a cap 257 21 The importance of being Ernest Jones: the cycle closes 261 Transmission of the tradition and “crypts” 261 Free Associations: Memories of a Psycho-Analyst 262 Epilogue: a debt to pay 266 Bibliography 269 Index 285 psychoanalytic;,Perplexities;,posthumous psychoanalytic,Perplexities,posthumous The book uses newly discovered primary sources to investigate one of Freud's most mysterious clinical experiences, the Forsyth case. It details Pierri's attempts to recover the lost original case notes which are published here for the first time to identify the patient involved and to set the case into the broader frame of Freud's work.