Рецензия Gesine Grossmann, Ханноверский унивеситет (ФРГ)
Titles can be quite misleading sometimes. This happenend to me when reading Bernd Nitzschke's latest collection of "Essays über Sigmund Freud und die Psychoanalyse im 20. Jahrhundert", headed "Das Ich als Experiment". Rather than discovering news about the "Ego", the reader is presented with many insights on what constitutes "Id", the very distractor of reason (which meant a lot more pleasurable hours of reading to me, by the way). To call this an "experiment" appeared to be even more confusing. The cases described here do not at all develop under controlled and meticulously planned conditions. Instead, we are faced with discord and misunderstandings, academic pillow fights about psychoanalysis and biographies of psychoanalysts gone astray. Four out of the ten articles are not on Freud but on competing theorists; and these sophisticated pieces of historiography, written with passion and good humour, go well beyond the scope of mere essays.
'There is not a single new article in the book!' our academic conscience bursts out as we open the pages. Nevertheless, a look at the preface reveals a careful arrangement. These examinations are variations on a common theme: the paradoxical in human existence which is so hard to tolerate, and the tendencies to split and build up dualistic constructions in order to cope with it. These splitting phenomena, Nitzschke wants to convince us, are also a strong characteristic of Sigmund Freud as a person. Drawing sharp dividing lines between good and evil, true and false then becomes visible on the levels of psychoanalytic institutions as well as the public's attitude towards Freudian doctrine. How can integration be achieved? Nitzschke does not offer a simple answer. To experience the problem's many facets, he confronts us with case studies of contradiction and ambivalence.
When reading the essays in reverse order (and I strongly recommend this!) the reader is introduced into contemporary (and all too well known) public debates calling in question the status of psychoanalysis as science and psychotherapy. Defenders and their enemies have been exchanging the same arguments from the beginning of these debates. Psychoanalytic thought is demonized repeatedly in the same way: It is accused of aiming to set free the evil in man and leave us all hopelessly driven by instinct. Examples of present-day newspaper articles unmask the discussions' defensive - in this sense: neurotic - character, repressing any deeper reflection on psychoanalytic statements successfully.
In a text that is more than an amusing thought experiment, the author draws our attention to sexual biases in psychoanalytic pathology. Hysteria, the psychological condition reserved by Freud for women only, is analogously diagnosed in men. Today hysteria finds its counterpart in male - especially male psychoanalysts' - narcissism. Ways in which this narcissism is expressed can be observed by taking a closer look at some reactions to female analysts. Nitzschke dedicates two essays to women in psychoanalysis. A more general outlook ("Freud und die Frauen. Eine paradoxe Beziehung") leaves the reader a little dissatisfied. Introducing a couple of polarized terms ("men" and "women", "Jews" and "non-Jews", "Apollo" and "Dionysius" etc.) awakens some associations in regard to the problem of femininity in psychoanalytic theory, but the ambivalence of this subject becomes concrete when Nitzschke inquires into the life and work of early psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein ("Sabina Spielrein. Die Liebe einer Psychoanalytikerin"). First a patient of C.G Jung and crossed in love with him, Spielrein becomes a medical doctor and psychoanalyst herself. She proves to be a remarkably independent thinker and develops a unique drive theory. In contrast to Freud's dualistic version, Spielrein argues for a monistic view of human motivation. Destruction is seen as inherent to libido and not as its antagonist. Nitzschke thoroughly recapitulates some of these interesting contributions and in turn criticises earlier historiographical studies on Spielrein. Well-meaning male historians have written her case as a story of a passive object in the relations between Jung and Freud. They accuse her colleagues of victimizing her and also exploiting her theoretical work. But what is announced as rehabilitation, Nitzschke deconstructs as just another attempt to objectify and thus dominate this woman's story. Spielrein knew about the originality of her work, and so did Freud. In her diaries you can find a very different perspective on what happened. Spielrein appears as unflaggingly searching for womens' possibilities in her time. Deconstruction of the male historian is done by Nitzschke in a very informative and stimulating manner (and not only the female reader might be seduced to carry on).
The investigation of Sabina Spielrein is one of four articles that represent the heart of this collection. All four of them offer a closer look at controversial and lesser known characters in the early development of psychoanalysis. A critical examination of Wilhelm Reich and Otto Fenichel, using many and in part newly accessible sources, interrogates all-too comfortable interpretations of history. We get a glimpse of neglected possibilities to psychoanalytic "official ideology": varieties of left-wing psychoanalysis. We are reminded of inherent potentials of the theory, of missed opportunities and roads waiting to be travelled.
Without question the two highlights of the collection (and by far the most voluminous ones) are the studies on Herbert Silberer and Otto Gross. Whereas some of us might remember Gross through the relations he had with artists and poets of his time, the inquiry into the story of Silberer, the "forgotten psychoanalyst", opens up new and challenging insights into the history and theory of psychoanalysis. Silberer has been an athlete and journalist for sports newspapers, overly supported by his father, a popular and successful personality in late 19th century Vienna. Increasingly losing interest in sports and journalism, Silberer turned to mysticism and occult experiences, examined primitive thinking and dreams, published several articles on symbolic thought - and became a psychoanalyst and member of the Psychoanalytic Society. Why was he expelled from collective memory? Once more, Nitzschke applies psychoanalytic modes of thinking to historical events. Rapid "forgetting", not only of Silberer, but also, for example, of Tausk, Gross or Staudenmaier is interpreted as repression of possible dangers to the estimation of Freudian ideas.
The reconstruction of the Silberer "case", a vivid and detailed description, reveals the instability of splitting mechanisms in historiography. Nitzschke calls on the integrative power of psychoanalytic theory itself: Bringing back to conscience the darker chapters of history and accepting them enables us to get a more complete picture. It is this passionate belief underlying all of the essays that makes them such a pleasant and convincing collection.
Those of us who already know some of Nitzschke's work (e.g.
the two earlier collections of essays, "Wir und der Tod", 1996; "Aufbruch
nach Inner-Afrika", 1998) should be prepared for minor repetitions. For
everybody interested in a lively and substantiated debate on psychoanalysis,
these essays will definitely be a most invigorating treat.