NOTES ON THE CREATION OF THE BI-LINGUAL TEXT OF FREUD'S Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides) I Psychoanalytische Bermerkungen Uber einen autobiographisch beschriebenen Fall von Paranoia (Dementia paranoids) 1911 First of all, as usual, I have used the current Standard Edition of Strachey for the English text and the Studienausgabe for the German text. The latter was chosen, for reasons of greater accuracy and because of the fact that in it, some of the notes in English from the Standard Edition have been translated into German. I was struck by a few peculiar parallels between Freud and Schreber and I will attempt to list them below in tabular form: FREUD

SCHREBER

Fleischl, Fliess Nervenartzt seelische Verwandlung ins Gegenteil Traumarbeit Neurones filled with Q Gas light flames of Leipzig " Such ideas-which will later become the basic concepts of the science are still more indispensable as the material is further worked over" Instincts and Their Vicissitudes p.11 7 (There is probably an even more exact parallel quote from Freud but at the moment I cannot locate it.)

Flechsig N ervenkranken Seele Verwandlung zum Weibe W ahnbildungsarbeit Nerve endings-feelings of voluptuousness ditto "This is naturally only an hypothesis, but as in scientific research it has to be adhered to until a better explanation for the events under investigation is found" Memoirs,p.25

These are just a few parallels that I have seen which may show more about my psychosis than Schreber's .. And, I am certainly not the first to have noticed this, because Freud himself on page 79 of this very article writes "It remains for the future to decide whether there is more delusion in my theory than I should like to admit, or whether there is more truth in Schreber's delusion than other people are as yet prepared to believe." I believe in rhetoric this is called a chiasmus.

Furthermore, Lacan states in his Proposition of9 October 1967, "that if you withdraw the Oedipus complex psychoanaysis in extension, I would say, falls entirely into the jurisdiction of President Schreber's delusion." I am also surprised that no one has written a book yet on the parallel lives of Schreber, Nietzsche and Cantor. Besides all of them being very intelligent men, they were all roughly from the same time and place, and all of them had some type of nervous breakdown and spent some time in a mental asylum. And last but not least, all of them wrote. One last thing that I have noticed from Schreber studies in general, is that Daniel Paul Schreber's first name, "Daniel" means in Hebrew, "God has judged". (He was ajudge and in a certain sense felt he was judged by God). And that he married in 1878 a woman named Ottilie Sabine Behr. Her last name could be a truncated version of his own last name, Schre-ber. I have noticed that occasionally people get married where the first or last name, or part of it, of the spouse is embedded in their own last or first name or vice versa, at least homophonically. What significance this has, or if it is just a coincidence, I do not know. But if it is not a coincidence, it would be one way that desire is passed down through the generations via a signifier. I have decided that in the near future, I will make a bi-lingual version of Schreber' s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, so that one may easily compare how Ida Macalpine and Richard A. Hunter have translated the text and compare that to how Strachey(see page 8) has translated the quotations from the original German text. As usual, I hope that the reader will find some interesting things in reading this bi-lingual edition that were not evident by just reading the English translation by itself. As Schreber reminds us, "Aller Unsinn hebt sich auf' that is, if you have the opportunity to be using a bi-lingual text. Richard G. Klein Apr 5, 2004 New York City

THE STANDARD EDITION OF THE COMPLETE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKS OF

SIGMUND FREUD Tr111UW«/from IM Gmnan "1llllr IM G11111al Etlitorsliip of

JAMES STRACHEY In Collaboration with

ANNA FREUD .Assisud b)I

ALIX STRACHEY and ALAN TYSON VOLUME XII (19ll-191S)

-··

The Case of Schreber ·Papers on Technique and

Other Works

AND THE INSTITUTE OF PSYCHO.ANAL'YSIS .. l.

PUBLISHED BY THE HOGARTH PRESS AN IMPRINT OF CHATTO It WINDUS 20 VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD LONDON SWJV 2SA

Die Freud-Studienausgabe erschien urspriinglich (1969-1979) im Rahmen der S. Fischer-Reihe CONDITIO HUMANA ERGEBNISSE AUS DEN WISSENSCHAFTEN VOM MENSCHEN

(Herausgeber: Thure von Uexkiill und Ilse Grubrich-Simitis; Berater: Johannes Cremerius, Hans J. Eggers, Thomas Luckmann). Der vorliegende Abdruck iibernimmt unveranden den Text der dritten, korrigienen Auflage von Band VII.

This Edition first published in 1958 Reprinted 1962, 1964, 1968, 197/, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1986, 1991 and 1995 ISBN 0 70120067 7

Ungekiirzte Ausgabe Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag April 1982 Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main Lizenzaus~ mit freundlicher Genehmigung des S. Fischer Verlages GmbH, Frankfurt am Main Fiir simtliche Freud-Tate: C> S. Fischer Verlag GrnbH, Frankfun am Main, 1973 Fiir das aus det Stlln!Urd Edition ofthe Complete Psychologial Works of Sigrm.nd Fre"'1 entnommene editorische Material: C> The Institute of Psycho-Analysil, London, und Angela Richards, Eynsham, 1973 Fiir zusitzliches editorisches Material: . 'f7 · CAngelaRichards,Eynsham, 1973 Alie Rechte, auch die des Abdrucks im Auszug und der photomechanischen Wiedergabe, vorbehalten. Die beiden Abbildungen auf S. 77 und S. 130 sind von Ruth und Harald Bukor nach den Originalvorlagen neu angdegt worden. U~taltung:.Mendell & Oberer Satz: Buchdruckerei Eugen GObd, Tiibingen · Druck und Bindung: Clausen & Bosse, Leck ' Printed in.~Y · 2680-ISBN 3-596-27307-2 .

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PSYCHO-ANALYTIC NOTES ON AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF PARANOIA (DEMENTIA PARANOIDES) (1911)

: Psychoanalytisc)le Bemerkungen 'iiber. einen autobiographisch.beschriebenen Fall von Paranoia (Dementia paranoides) / (1911 [1910])

INHALT

CONTENTS

BAND VII

VOLUME TWELVE

PSYCHO-ANALYTIC NOTES ON AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF A CASE OF PARANOIA (DEMENTIA PARANOIDES) (1911) Editor's Note Introduction I Case History II Attempts at Interpretation III On the Mechanism of Paranoia Postscript

PSYCHOANALYTISCHE BE:¥ERKUNGEN UBER EINEN AUTOBIOGRAP:fusC!i BESCHRIEBENEN FALL voN PARANOIA

pag1 3 9

12 35 59 80

Naditrag zu deni· ~ut~biographisdi be~chriebenen Fall von Paranoia (Dementia paranoides)Mitteilung eines der psychoanalytischen Theorie widersprechen~ den Falles. von Paranoia< (1915 f) und Abschnitt B von >Ober einige neurotische Mechanismen bei Eifersucht, Paranoia und Homosexualitat< (1922 b). DarUber hinaus enthalt >Eine Teufelsneurose im siebzehnten Jahrhun~ert~ (1923 d [1922]) einiges Uber den Fall Schreb~r, obwohl die Neur~se, von der jene Arbeit handelt, von Freud nirgendwo als Paranoia bezeidmet wirq. In keiner dieser spateren Schriften sind irgendwelche wesentlichen Modifikationen der in der vorliegenden Arbeit ausgesprochenen Ansichten iiber Paranoia zu erkennen. Die Bedeutung der Schreber-Analyse erschopft sich aber keineswegs in de_n Erklarungen zur Paranoia. Besonders der dritte Abschnitt ist in mandter Hinsicht ein Vorlaufer der metapsychologischen Schriften, die Freud drei oder vier Jahre spater in Angriff nahm. Es finden sich hier schon einige der. Themen berUhrt, die spater ausfiihrlicher erortert werden sollten. So sind die Bemerkungen Uber NarziBmus (S. 184 ff.) Vorboten der Arbeit Uber diesen Gegens~and (1914 c); die Oberlegungen Uber den Ver:drangungsmechanismus (S. 189 ff.) wurden einige Jahre spater (1915 d) wieder aufgenommen; und in der Diskussion der Triebe (S. 196) finden sich Vorlaufer fUr die differenziertere spatere Erorterung (1915 c); Der Absatz Uber Projektion (S. 189) andererseits blieb trotz Freuds AnkUndigung ohne Fortsetzung. Die .beiden im letzten Teil .der Arbeit erorterten Themen - die verschiedenen Anlasse zur neurotischen Erkrankung (einschlieBlich des Begriffs der ,. Versagung«) und die Rolle der sukZessiven ,.Fixierungsstellen« - wurden bald danach in eigenen Arbeiten (1912c und 1913 i; die letztere im vorliegenden Band, S. 109 ff.) fortgefilhrt. SchlieBlidt findet sich im >Nachtrag< Freuds erster kurzer Exkurs in das Gebiet der-Mythologie sowie die erste Erwahnung des Totems, ein Theina, das seine Gedanken damals zu beschaftigen begann und einem seiner Hauptwerke (19t2..:..t3) deil · · Namen geben sollte.

Wie Freud uns selbst mitteilt (S. 172, Anm. 1), hat er in seiner Falldarstellung . . "

NOTES ON A CASE OF PARANOIA

Ober einen autobiographisch beschriebenen Fall 'tlon Pa•anoia

a single fact (Schreber's age at the time he fell ill) that was not contained in the Memoirs. We now possess, thanks to a paper written by Dr. Franz Baumeyer (1956), a quantity of additional information. Dr. Baumeyer was for some years (1946-9) in charge of a hospital near Dresden where he found a quantity of the original case records of Schreber's successive illnesses. He has summarized these records and quoted many of them in full. In addition to this he has collected a large number of facts concerning Schreber's family history and antecedents. Where any of this material seems to be directly relevant to Freud's paper, it will be found mentioned in the footnotes. Here it is only necessary to report the sequel to the history narrated in the Memoirs. After his discharge at the end of 1902, Schreber seems to have carried on an outwardly normal existence for some years. Then, in November, 1907, his wife had a stroke (though she lived until 1912). This seems to have precipitated a fresh onset of his illness, and he was re-admitted-this time to an asylum in the Dosen district of Leipzig-a fortnight later.1 He remained there in an extremely disordered and largely inaccessible state until his death, after gradual physical deterioration, in the spring of 1911-only a short time before the publication of Freud's paper. The following chronological table, based on data derived partly from the Memoirs and partly from Baumeyer's material, may make the details in Freud's discussion easier to disentangle. 1842 July 25. Daniel Paul Schreber born at Leipzig. 1861 November. Father died, aged 53. 1877 Elder brother (3 years his senior) died, aged 38. 1878 Married. First Illness 1884 Autumn. Stood as candidate for the Reichstag. 1

nur eine einzige Tatsadie (Sdirebers Aiter zur L.eit seiner zweiten Erkrankung) verwendet, die nicht in den D.~nkwilrdigkeitm enthalten ist." Wir besitzen jetzt dank einer. Arbeit .von F.ranz ;Baumey~r (19~6) ,e~e betrachtliche Menge wejteren Materials. Baumeyer war von 1946 bis 1949 C~efarzt der I,andesanstalt Arnsdorf bei Dresden undfand drt zahlr~iche alte Krankenblatter von Schrebers verschiedenen Krankheitspbasen. Ba0meyer bat iiber einige .dieser Akten zusammenfassend berichtet, andere im. v~l1en Wortlaut ~iedergegeben., Ferner hat er eine Fiille von Fakten iiber Schrebe!S Vorf~bren und Familiengeschichte gesammelt 1• Wo immer. etwas ·von diesen Informationen fiir Freuds Abhandlung unmittelb11.r relevant e~schei.nt, is~ es in editoris