On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Rob Weisskirch wrote: > TIPSfolk, > > As I was lecturing on Freud, a student commented that Freud had performed > some genital mutilation on women. Although I think that this is probably > some twist of the Electra complex and penis envy, I thought since Freud > was a doctor/surgeon it might be possible. > > Does anyone know anything about this?
Stephen Black replied: <<Perhaps your student was thinking of the famous Fliess caper. Freud assisted his good buddy Wilhelm Fliess in botching a totally unnecessary operation on the nose of poor hapless Emma Eckstein. Fliess had a theory that the nose is connected to the genitals (he really did!), and Emma needed to have her turbinate bone removed to fix her neurosis. Instead, she almost died. Freud, of course, blamed Emma for this minor setback. So it was genital mutilation by way of the nose. Think that could be it?>> I think Stephen's explanation for the source of the student's comment is most likely correct. Freud, of course, never performed any such operation. In the case of Emma Eckstein early in his professional career (1895), he requested Fliess to perform the operation that Stephen alludes to. Freud was impressed by Fliess's theory of the "nasal reflex neurosis", and decided that Eckstein was an appropriate candidate for Fliess's dubious 'treatment' for the condition. After Fliess had returned to Berlin following the botched operation, the patient suffered from life-threatening haemorrhaging, and Freud called in competent surgeons to save her. Following the recurrence of bleeding a couple of months later, a few days after an exploratory operation Freud told Fliess that Eckstein had again suffered "a new life-threatening haemorrhage", and that "the Eckstein affair is rapidly moving toward a bad ending." In the event she recovered, and the following year Freud reported to Fliess "a completely surprising explanation of Eckstein's haemorrhages", namely, "her episodes of bleeding were hysterical, were occasioned by *longing*." A few days later he wrote that the last of the haemorrhages had occurred as a result of "the realization of an old wish to be loved in her illness� [B]ecause of an unconscious wish to entice me to go [to her]�she renewed her bleedings, as an unfailing means of rearousing my affection." So Stephen is not quite right when he says that Freud blamed Emma. He blamed her Unconscious. Allen Esterson London --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
