experience ( Freud, 1985 ). After abandoning his seduction theory and with no Oedipus complex to replace it, Freud sank even more deeply into his midlife crisis. Freud’s official biographer, Ernest Jones ( 1953, 1955, 1957 ), believed that Freud suffered from and severe psychoneurosis during the late 1890s, although Max Schur ( 1972 ), Freud’s personal physician during the final decade of his life, contended that his illness was due to a cardiac lesion, aggravated by addiction to nicotine. Peter Gay ( 1988 ) suggested that during the time immediately after his father’s death, Freud “relived his Oedipus conflicts with peculiar ferocity ”. But Henri Ellenberger ( 1970 ) described this period in Freud’s life as a time of “creative illness”, a condition characterized by depression, neurosis, psychosomatic ailment, and an intense preoccupation with some form of creative activity. In any event, at midlife, Freud was suffering from self-doubts, depression, and obsession with his own death. Despite these difficulties, Freud completed his greatest work, Interpretation of Dreams ( 1900/1953 ), during this period. This book finished in 1899, was as outgrowth of this self-analysis, much of which he had revealed to his friend Wilhelm Fliess. The book contained many of Freud’s own dreams, some disguised behind fictitious names.
No comments:
Post a Comment