1
NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis
And Psychotherapy
THE EVOLUTION OF FREUDS’S THOUGHT - I
1885-1915
Elliot M. Kronish, Ph.D., Instructor
Fall, 2016
The first part of this yearlong study of Freud introduces us to the basic building
blocks of Freudian theory and technique. The role of conflict and defense in the
generation of neurosis and its relationship to aspects of mind such as repression,
dreams, fantasy and compromise formation will be discussed. Freud’s theory of
psychosexual development and its role in normal and pathological functioning will
also be addressed. We will also begin to look at Freud’s thoughts on
psychoanalytic technique (to be continued in Freud II), and how theoretical ideas
and clinical technique begin to be integrated.
Week 1 – Freud: Biographical and Cultural Context
Freud, S. (1886). Vol. I: Report on My Studies in Paris and Berlin, pp 1-16.
Optional Reading
Makari, G. (2008). Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis. NY:
HarperCollins
Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A Life for Our Time.
Learning Objective – This class introduces candidates to the scientific climate in
which Freud began his evolving interest in neuroses and from which
psychoanalysis emerged. At the end of this class candidates will have learned
about a) Freud’s early life and its influence on his career and thinking; b) the early
views on nervous disease from which Freud began his study of neurosis; c) the
2
influence of Charcot and his studies with him in Paris, which influenced Freud’s
early work on hysteria and the place of hypnosis in therapeutic technique.
WEEK 2 – Trauma, Abreaction, Repression.
Breuer and Freud (1891-95). Studies on Hysteria.
S.E. Vol. II: Preliminary Communication, pp.3-17.
Lucy: pp.106-124.
Katrina: pp. 125-134.
Learning Objective – At the end of this class candidates will have learned about a)
Freud and Breuer’s views on mental conflict and the origin of hysterical symptom
formation as related to repression; b) alternative views of mental dissociation
(repression and hypnoid states); c) the therapeutic method of abreaction and
catharsis as a way of discharging repressed affect and its beneficial effects,
including symptom removal.
Week 3 – Hysteria (continued); The Beginnings of Psychoanalytic Therapy.
S.E. Vol. II: Fraulein Elizabeth Von R., pp. 135-182.
The Psychotherapy of Hysteria: pp.253-306.
Learning Objective – At the end of this class candidates will have a) read two case
histories in which Freud demonstrated his early views on hysteria, including the
consideration of constitutional and genetic factors; b) the complexity of
understanding a case of psychoneurosis; c) the beginning of Freud’s consideration
of transference in the analytic treatment.
Week 4 – Defense and Psychoneurotic States.
S.E.,Vol. III: The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense (1894) , pp. 45-61.
Further Remarks on the Neuro-Psychoses of Defense (1896), pp. 162-185.
Learning Objective – At the end of this class candidates will have learned about a)
Freud’s beginning differentiation of neurotic states (nosology); b) different kinds
3
of repression (i.e. defenses); c) the ways in which certain kinds of defense
influence the type of neurosis which develops.
Week 5 – The Interpretation of Dreams (part 1).
S.E., Vol. IV: Chapter I - The Method of Interpreting Dreams: Analysis of a
Specimen Dream (1900),
96-121.
S.E., Vol. IV: Chapter III - Dreams as Wish Fulfilments, pp. 122-133.
S.E., Vol. IV: Chapter IV - Distortion in Dreams, pp. 134-162.
Week 6 and 7 – The Interpretation of Dreams (continued).
S.E, Vol .V – Chapter VII – The Psychology of the Dream Process, pp. 509-621.
Optional Reading
Solms, M. (1995). New findings on the neurological organization of dreaming:
implications for psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, LXIV, pp. 43-67.
Ogden, T. (2004). The art of psychoanalysis: dreaming undreamt dreams and
interrupted cries. International J. of Psychoanalysis, 85: 8857-878.
Learning Objective – A consideration of Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” will
help candidates to understand a) the role of wish fulfillment in mental life; b) the
difference between manifest and latent dream content; c) an analytic method for
using dreams clinically, especially as a way of understanding repressed memories
and fantasies; d) the formulation of the topographic model of mental functioning,
including the ideas of derivatives of the Unconscious, censorship of unacceptable
mental content, and a way to understand consciousness e) some consideration of
more recent notions of the dream process and its place in psychoanalytic
technique
Week 8 and 9 – The Use of Dreams in Psychoanalysis.
S.E, Vol. VII: Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria (Dora), (1905), pp.1122.
4
S.E, Vol. XII: The handling of dream interpretation in psychoanalysis, (1911), 8596.
Optional Reading
Deutsch, F, (1957). A footnote to Freud’s fragment of an analysis of a case of
hysteria. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, XXVI, 159-167.
Learning Objective – A consideration of the “Dora” case will be discussed. At the
end of the discussion the candidates will have learned a) how Freud used dreams
in his analysis of a case of hysteria; b) Freud’s struggle to understand the origins
of hysteria; c) Freud’s beginning emphasis on early infantile sexual factors in the
causation of hysteria; d) Feud’s struggle with Dora’s treatment in terms of
handling transference and countertransference.
Week 10 – Psychosexual Development and Infantile Sexuality.
S.E., Vol. VII: Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality: Essays 1 and 2 (1905), pp.
133-206.
Week 11 – Adult Sexuality and Perversion.
S.E, Vol. VII: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality: Essay 3 (1905), pp. 207-243.
Optional Reading
Bach, S. (1994). Sadomasochistic Object Relations. In: The Language of Perversion
and the Language of Love. Northvale, N.J. Aronson, 3-25.
Flax, J. (2004). The Scandal of desire: psychoanalysis and disruptions of gender: a
meditation on Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Contemporary
Psychoanalysis, 40: pp. 47-68.
Learning Objective – The central place of sexual theory in Freud’s thought will be
discussed. At the end of these classes candidates will have a knowledge of a)
infantile component sexual instincts; b) the nosology of neurosis and perversion
as related to infantile sexuality; c) the factors resulting in a final integration of the
component instincts into adult sexuality; d) consideration regarding infantile and
5
adult “object choice”; e) the meaning of integrating the sexual and affectionate
currents.
Week 12 and 13 – Obsessional Neurosis.
S.E. Vol. X: Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis (The Rat Man) (1909), pp.
155-249.
Original Record of the Case, pp. 253-318.
Lipton, S.D. (1977). The Advantages of Freud’s technique as shown in his analysis
of the rat man.
International Journal of Psa., 58: 255-273.
S,E. Vol. IX: Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices (1907), pp. 115-128.
Learning Objective – A reading and discussion of the “Rat Man’ case will help
candidates understand a) the nature of obsessional neurosis; b) the place of
ambivalence and aggression in obsessional states; c) the particular kinds of
defenses used in obsessional neurosis; d) Freud’s personal reactions to treating
the rat man; e) Freud’s views of obsessive actions as part of ordinary life.
Week 14 – Fantasy, Reality, Memory, Creativity.
S.E Vol. XII: Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning (1911),
213-226.
S.E. Vol. IX: Family Romances (1909), pp. 235-244.
S.E. Vol. IX: Creative Writers and Day Dreaming (1908), pp. 141-154
Optional Reading
Smith, J.H. (1977). The pleasure principle. International J. of Psychoanalysis, 58: 110.
Learning Objective – These readings will help candidates understand a) Freud’s
emphasis on fantasy in mental life; b) certain kinds of common fantasies common
to many people; c) the distinctions between the pleasure principle and the reality
6
principles as regulatory principles of the mind; d) a beginning sense of a
developmental line leading from the dominance of the pleasure principle to an
orientation to reality which includes ways to obtain pleasure (satisfaction).
Week 15 – Technique Papers.
S.E. Vol. XII: Recommendations to physicians practicing psychoanalysis (1912), pp.
109-120.
S.E. Vol. XII: On beginning the treatment (1913), pp. 123-144 S.E. Vol. XII: The
dynamics of transference (1912), pp.97-108.
Learning Objective – The beginning of a discussion of Freud’s technique papers (to
be continued in Freud II) will help candidates understand a) Freud’s method of
starting an analysis and the kinds of patients he considered appropriate for this
method of treatment; b) a close consideration of Freud’s thoughts on the nature
and centrality of transference in psychoanalytic treatment; c) a view of Freud’s
“dual” notion of transference: as a repetition of past established patterns of
relating to people and, less explicitly, as a reliving of the past involving the analyst
as a “player” in that revival of past experiences in the immediacy of the analytic
session.