Sigmund Freud, a father

The vertical axis and the horizontal axis

Sigmund Freud was the inventor of psychoanalysis and the father of “the wild horde¹.” He was also, and first of all, a grandson and a son, a brother, an uncle and a nephew before becoming a husband and the father of a family, then finally a grandfather². The founder of psychoanalysis was a man whose existence was marked by births, joys, illnesses, and deaths. His exceptional destiny did not spare him the human ordeals. The Freud family, between Sigmund’s birth in Freiberg in 1856 and its settling in Vienna in 1860, resembles the blended families of our present era. Jacob Freud, the patriarch, born in 1772 in Eastern Galicia, belonged to a family of Jewish merchants. They were four children, among them Josef, the disreputable brother, the uncle who dishonored the family and who appears in the dreams of L’interprétation du rêve (The Interpretation of Dreams)³. The patronymic resonated with Freude, meaning joy in German, and it was derived from Freide, the first name of Jacob’s great-grandmother⁴. From his marriage with Sally, of whom he was a widower, Jacob had had two sons: Emmanuel, the eldest, married and the father of two children, Johann, called John, a year older than Sigmund, and Pauline, of the same age as he. Sigmund considered his two nephews to be his “cousins.” Philipp, Jacob’s second son, was unmarried; he was practically the same age as Sigmund’s mother, who considered him better matched with her than Jacob. As for Jacob’s second wife, Rebekka, she was effaced from the official family history. Her trace surges up in the primordial letter of September 21, 1897, where Freud confides to his friend Fliess the abandonment of his neurotica, which opened the way to the exploration of psychic reality and of unconscious fantasies⁵. The vertical axis of ascendant-descendant relations is inseparable from the horizontal axis of relations within the sibling group and within alliance. On the scene of unconscious desire the two axes slide permanently, fostering the confusion of generational places and of gendered positions. Amalia Nathanson, the third wife of Jacob Freud, was his junior by twenty years. The family configuration issued from Jacob Freud’s various unions can be read between the lines of Freud’s article entitled “Family Romances⁶.” Sigmund Schlomo Freud was born on May 6, 1856, three months after the death of Schlomo, his grandfather, whose first name he would never bear. Julius, the second son of Jacob and Amalia, came into the world in 1857 and died in 1858. Anna, Sigmund’s rival sister, his intimate enemy, was born a year later. She doubtless bore the weight of the death-wishes and the feelings of guilt of her brother Sigmund toward the younger child. Between 1860 and 1866, Amalia gave birth to four daughters, Rosa, Marie, Adolphine, Pauline, and a son, Alexander, whose first name Sigmund, between big brother and father, chose.

Martha Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s chosen one, had been born in 1861, into a family of Jewish intellectuals, religious. Martha’s mother, Emilie Philipp (1830–1910), authoritarian, instilled in her children a strict and austere upbringing. Her daughter’s choice to marry Sigmund, without fortune and without social position, did not meet with her approval. This marriage took place on September 13, 1886. Martha was the elder sister of Minna, born in 1865, and of Eli Bernays, who married Anna, the first of Freud’s sisters and the only one of the five who, exiled to the United States, was able to escape Nazi persecution. The refusal of religion on Freud’s part was imposed upon his wife, herself issued from a religious family and a descendant of a grandfather who was a rabbi of Hamburg. Sigmund had a privileged relation with Minna, whom he designates, in his correspondence, as “my treasure, my sister.” His sister-in-law was engaged to one of his friends, Ignaz Schönberg, who died of tuberculosis at the beginning of the year 1886. Minna remained unmarried, taking care of her mother, then living in the Freud household, in Vienna. She became “Aunt Minna” to the children. The confidante of her brother-in-law, he spoke to her of his professional life, in which his wife took scarcely any interest. Minna accompanied Sigmund on his travels, in particular to Italy. Carl Gustav Jung, the first dissident, interpreting remarks of Minna Bernays, insinuated that Freud had been the lover of his wife’s sister. Martha Freud was in charge of domestic life. René Laforgue evokes her personality: “A woman of practical mind, who had the marvelous gift of creating an atmosphere of peace and of joy in living⁷.” An excellent homemaker, she did not take herself for an intellectual, and she saw in her husband’s theories “a form of pornography.”

A tender and tyrannical father

Sigmund and Martha Freud had six children in nine years. October 16, 1887, is the day of Mathilde’s birth. In a letter to his mother-in-law Emmeline and to his sister-in-law Minna Bernays, he describes his experience as a young father, at the side of his parturient wife: “She weighs three thousand four hundred grams, which is very honorable; is frightfully ugly, has been sucking her right thumb from the very first instant; apart from that, she seems to have a good character and behaves as though she really felt at home. She cries little despite her superb voice, looks very satisfied, rests comfortably in her magnificent cradle, and gives no impression of regretting her great adventure. She has naturally been named Mathilde after Mme Breuer. How can one write at such length about a little thing five hours old? I feel I already love her very much, although I have not yet seen her by the light of day […] Perhaps you are more interested in the mother. She was so kind the whole time, so courageous and gentle. No sign of impatience or of bad humor, and when she could not keep herself from crying out, she each time apologized for it to the doctor and the midwife⁸.” The delivery was long and it was necessary to use the forceps. The husband declares the fervor of his love: “Martha was quite in agreement, not at all anxious, and joked in the calm moments with her two saviors and with her companion in misfortune: me. I am as tired as if I had myself endured everything⁹ […] and amid all the physical and moral upheaval that the event caused us both, we were very happy. It has now been thirteen months that I have been living with her, and I never cease to congratulate myself on having had the boldness to declare myself, when I knew her rather little. I have always appreciated at its true worth the inestimable treasure I had acquired, but she has never shown herself as magnificent in her simplicity and her goodness as in this harsh ordeal that permits no dissimulation¹⁰.” A few days later, on October 21, the gaze he casts upon his daughter is more nuanced: “For I tell you solemnly, although Mathilde sucks her fingers, she resembles me strikingly in the general opinion; some even point out the spots on my face from which the little one’s features were drawn. She has already become much prettier and sometimes I even believe her beautiful. She still takes from me the firm will to eat her fill, and unfortunately, too, she has inherited my disposition to worry about the daily bread, as I am going to report to you. I have already received two requests for her hand in marriage […] but the decision is not made and the dowry is not fixed. I possessed a gold coin as the start of a dowry, but I let myself be persuaded to give it to the midwife¹¹.” In 1889, the birth of his first son, (Jean) Martin, named thus in memory of Jean Martin Charcot. In 1891 was born the second son, named Oliver in homage to Cromwell, who was greatly admired by Sigmund Freud. Then Ernst, the fourth child, was born in 1892; he was the third and last son after Martin and Oliver. He was the favorite of neither his father nor his mother. This characteristic doubtless earned him a great independence. For his thirtieth birthday his father would write to him: “You are the only one of my children to possess already everything a man can desire at your age: a loving wife, a superb child, work, income, and friends. You deserve all of this, moreover, and as not everything in life goes according to merit, let me express the wish that luck remain faithful to you¹².” An architect by profession, Ernst would set up 20 Maresfield Gardens, fitted out according to his plans, to welcome in 1938, during their London exile, his parents and his sister Anna. He would have three children, among them the renowned painter Lucian Freud, who is a striking figure of contemporary art.

In a letter of July 13, 1891, to his sister-in-law Minna, Freud wrote: “The brood is growing well. Martin has become adorable, so affectionate, a very good nature; he is very intelligent, knows a great number of words, repeats a heap of things, and understands almost everything except, naturally, technical and scientific terms. Oliver still cries like one possessed, but he is a very beautiful baby and very alert, he gains a hundred and thirty grams a week and he functions perfectly. It is only with the little girl [Mathilde] that it’s a calvary; she looks so wild and, in her exuberance, doesn’t know what mischief to undertake; she says ‘no’ on principle to everything one proposes to her and considers herself exempt from obeying. Add to that the absurd upbringing the nanny gives her (whom I am, for that matter, soon going to retire) and the weakness of Martha, who does not dare reprimand the old woman for her most ill-placed criticisms. Let us hope that our little creature will also escape these influences and recover the behavior of a little girl¹³.” Sigmund Freud was a father of intractable vigilance! Martin, the first son, would always be crushed by the paternal image¹⁴; he compensated for an ungainly physique with a vivacity of mind and a caustic humor; he was less loved by his mother than Oliver, who was personable and charming. In a letter to Jung, Freud explains that Martin’s difficult relation with his mother was linked to the conflicts with the Bernays family, in particular with Eli, Martha’s brother and the husband of Anna Bernays, Sigmund’s sister: “He is not his mother’s favorite but, on the contrary, is treated by her in an almost unjust manner. She compensates upon him for her excessive complicity with her own brother, whom he strongly recalls, while I, remarkable thing, compensate with him for my harshness toward the same person (currently in New York¹⁵).” The sliding of the vertical axis onto the horizontal axis remained always active! 1893 was the year of the birth of Sophie, the second daughter; her first name was chosen to honor Sophie Schwab, niece of Sigmund Freud’s Hebrew teacher. Like her sister Mathilde, she was destined, according to the educational principles of Freud and his wife, to become a wife and a model mother of a family. Sophie was more beautiful than Mathilde. She was the favorite of Martha, her mother. Anna conceived of this a jealousy that would torment her infinitely. The conflicts and the sibling rivalries reproduced themselves as in the previous generation. Did not Freud write to Fliess as early as 1896: “Annerl is stupidly gluttonous and has six teeth whose appearance was not observed, thanks to her unscientific mother. Sopherl, 3 and a half, is now at the stage of beauty. The boys are naughty and funny, Mathilde is in very good form, apart from her tic now localized in the facial zone¹⁶.” Freud was always cruel with Anna, from her early childhood. On Martha’s side, exhausted by her successive pregnancies, the maternal gaze and attentive tenderness always failed her. Convalescent following an appendectomy, she could not attend the marriage of her sister Sophie to the photographer Max Halberstad. Freud bore the marriage of his two daughters poorly. He became despotic with Anna, who was deprived of suitors. Sophie brought two sons into the world, Ernst, nicknamed Ernstl, in 1914, and Heinz, called Heinerle, in 1918. On January 26, 1920, Freud writes to Amalia, his mother: “Our dear and resplendent Sophie died yesterday morning of a rapidly evolving flu, with pneumonia […] she is the first of our children whom we must outlive […] I hope you will receive the news with calm; one must also know how to accept misfortune. But it is permitted to weep for the beautiful creature, so well made to live, and who was so happy with her husband and her children¹⁷.” Sophie was pregnant with her third child. Mathilde would take charge of Heinerle, who succumbed three years later to a miliary tuberculosis, and Anna took care of Ernstl, whom she even thought of adopting. Ernstl was “the child with the spool,” the little boy of the “fort-da.” He was the only male descendant who would become a psychoanalyst. The grief of Freud the grandfather was immense: “Since Heinerle’s death, I no longer love my grandchildren and I no longer rejoice in life.” He pours out his pain to his disciple Sandor Ferenczi: “For years I prepared myself for the loss of my sons; now comes that of my daughter. Profoundly unbelieving, I have no one to accuse and I know that there exists no place where one might lodge a complaint¹⁸.” But well before the time of mournings, in the letter of August 20, 1893, to Fliess, he confided about his conjugal intimacy with Martha: “She had so looked forward to making this trip to Csorba; domestic events had shown her how difficult it is to manage to leave one’s children, and, for six years, during which the children have followed one upon another, her mode of life has left little room for distraction and rest. I do not believe I can refuse her this wish. You can imagine what lies behind this: the gratitude, the feeling of coming back to life in a woman who, already, for the coming year, will not have to expect a child, since we now live in abstinence, and you know, moreover, the reason for it¹⁹.”

Anna—Annerl—Antigone

On December 3, 1895, he announces to Fliess the birth of little Annerl: “If it had been a son, I would have telegraphed you the news, for he… would have borne your name. As it has become a little girl named Anna, she comes to present herself to you belatedly. She arrived thanks to the care of Fleischmann, did the mother no harm, and now the two of them are doing quite well. I hope that the same good news from you will not be too long in arriving here, and then Anna and Paulinchen, when they meet, will learn to get along very well²⁰.” Why did Freud give his third daughter the first name of his detested sister? The first names of the other children were chosen to honor the memory of cherished or admired persons. Anna is the only one of her sibling group to bear a Hebrew first name. In modern Hebrew, the first name Anna symbolizes charm, feminine grace. As a young girl, she would become the Antigone of her father, who would withdraw her from her destiny as a woman²¹. In the letter of December 8, 1895, he adds: “The lying-in proceeds, with excellent care, without the slightest disturbance, and even serenely. The baby drinks Gärtner’s fatty milk and responds, so I am told—I see her little—to all the requirements in a satisfactory manner²².” Then, on January 1, 1896: “What do I not owe you! Consolation, understanding, stimulation in my solitude, sense of life—which I attribute to you, and also, finally, health that no other could have given me back²³.” Fliess is irreplaceable. Anna is disappointing; because of her, no descendant of Sigmund’s will bear the first name Wilhelm. Fliess is the ideal interlocutor fabricated out of whole cloth by Freud himself; he is his alter ego. Is Anna not the fruit of this passion? After her birth, Sigmund Freud, at forty, chose abstinence. The following year, he writes to his friend: “My poor Martha has a life of torments. Annerl, it is true, is resplendent, Mathilde had so little to suffer with her illness that we were able to send her today with my sister Dolfi to Sulz, but, on the other hand, Martin fell ill today, and it is probably going to be each one’s turn²⁴.” Freud is an attentive father when he allows himself leisure with the family. During the summer holidays, he enjoys mountain hikes and gathering mushrooms. “The children want me to play with them today the great game of ‘100 journeys across Europe’²⁵.”

The death of Jacob Freud

In the course of the year 1896, old Jacob was dying. Sigmund, moved, evokes his father: “My old father (81 years old) finds himself at Baden in a most precarious state, with cardiac collapses, paralysis of the bladder, and other things of the same order… […] He is really a formidable fellow²⁶.” He died on October 23, 1896. On October 26 Sigmund wrote to Fliess: “Yesterday, we buried the old man, who passed away on the night of October 23. He held up valiantly to the very end, like the rather uncommon man he was, after all […] All this happened during my critical period; I am, moreover, really at the end of my rope²⁷.” On November 2, he writes to his friend Fliess: “By one of those obscure paths behind the official consciousness, the death of the old man affected me greatly. I esteemed him greatly, understood him very well, and he had a considerable part in my life, with that mixture proper to him of profound wisdom and of fancy-filled lightness. His life had long been over when he died, but on this occasion there were doubtless awakened in the depths of me all the things of the past. I now have the feeling of being truly without roots²⁸.” He evokes the dream he had in the night that followed his father’s burial: “I was in an establishment and I was reading a placard that was there: One is requested to close the eyes²⁹.” Freud interprets: “The dream is therefore an emanation of that propensity toward self-reproach that presents itself regularly among survivors³⁰.” His father’s death had considerable psychic repercussions on Sigmund Freud. The inaugural work of his discovery, L’interprétation du rêve³¹, born of his self-analysis, and the correspondence with Wilhelm Fliess are the testimony of it.

The theory of seduction

In a staggering letter to Fliess of February 8, 1897, we perceive the power of the unconscious fantasy, of the infantile that animates research, the epistemological drive: “I also wanted to ask you, in connection with the coprophagia of animals, chyb.ed³², at what moment disgust appears in small children and whether there is a period without disgust in the very earliest age. Why do I not go into the children’s room to conduct experiments with Annerl? Because with 12½ hours of work I do not have the time, and because the female sex does not support my research³³.” Fliess noted the manifestations of the “periodic surges” in the development of the child, notably of his son Robert (the erections, the stools, the traces of blood in the nose, the urine, the spittle)³⁴. Sigmund Freud’s passion for Wilhelm Fliess drew him into delirious flights of fancy. Anna was already her father’s guinea pig at the age of 2. The seductive and sadistic intrusion rooted in childhood would continue, to deploy itself in all its amplitude during Anna’s analysis by her father between 1918 and 1920, then between 1922 and 1924. It is present from Anna’s earliest childhood. In this same letter 120 of February 8, 1897, as in a moment of subjective eclipse, produced by the irruption of a fantasy and of a paternal identification, Sigmund Freud does not seem to perceive the import of his remarks in connection with his development on the birth of disgust: “Unfortunately my own father was one of these perverts and was responsible for the hysteria of my brother (whose states all correspond to an identification) and for that of some of my youngest sisters. The frequency of this relation often gives me to think³⁵.” The work of mourning and the deferred effect of Jacob’s death transform, under the effect of guilt and remorse, the son’s ambivalent feelings toward the father. Sigmund Freud effects a reversal that transports him into the unexplored regions of the psyche. In the letter of September 21, 1897, almost a year after Jacob’s death, he writes: “And now, I am going to confide to you right away the great secret that, over the course of the last months, has slowly dawned upon me. I no longer believe in my neurotica […] Then, the surprise of seeing that in the whole set of cases one had to incriminate the father as a pervert, not excluding my own, the finding of the unexpected frequency of hysteria, where each time this same condition is found maintained, whereas such an extension of perversion toward children is, all the same, hardly likely. […] Then, thirdly, the certain finding that there is no sign of reality in the unconscious, so that one cannot differentiate truth from fiction invested with affect. Henceforth the solution that remained is that sexual fantasy regularly seizes upon the theme of the parents³⁶.” Sigmund Freud rehabilitated his father. The Oedipus complex takes shape on the horizon of the theoretical renewal.

Psychoanalysis enters the scene

1895 was the year of Anna’s birth, 1896 that of Jacob’s death, and 1897 was marked by the abandonment of the theory of seduction. Over the course of these three years, Freud renounced begetting. The work of sublimation, at the expense of ordinary sexuality, was exalted by his fervent friendship toward Wilhelm Fliess. The self-analysis stirred the deep waters of memory and rendered present the infantile that animates the theater of the drives³⁷. Anna, the last-born, the one who would become the vestal of the paternal temple, is the heir of her father’s passions. She would assume this destiny and this mission at the price of the renunciation of a life as a woman, like that of her mother and her sisters.

Notes