Freud in Life and Death

Freud is buried and his followers or pupils will see or hear him nevermore. What did he look like? men will ask. Such a great man must have looked serious and solemn, some may argue. As a man who knew all the foibles and wickedness of people, he was certainly severe and inaccessible. What did he really look like, what was his attitude? One who knew mankind and all its types so thoroughly, would scarcely wear a curly head and a wild growing beard like a philosopher, a broad brimmed hat like a painter; he would scarcely look like the narcissistic dandy or shabby like a miser.

Freud looked artless, not striking, like other intellectuals or physicians; in a well fitting suit of fine quality, always with a black tie—he just seemed not to have wasted much time on his appearance. He was never solemn or withdrawn, always friendly and encouraging, in a word—human.

It is a pity that it is so difficult to change the neurotics profoundly. Most people come too late, in a too advanced state of their illness to the psychoanalyst. Freud smiling liked to quote sometimes the sceptical sentence: “Three things are impossible: to rule, to educate and to cure.” “Washing negroes white”—he insulted his work in such moments of disappointment. Experience had shown him Chat it is impossible to rebuild a human mind in a short time, to change a character. So he warned of “furor therapeuticus.” For him working with a patient had to bring new knowledge, and he pitied those psychotherapists, and laughed at them who, attempting to use suggestion, repeat the whole day the same recommendation. He always intended to understand thoroughly; so music did not interest him, because he regarded it as an unintelligible language. He was above everything inquirer; he would have devoted himself—if it had been necessary—to research only, without prospect of healing. He left behind him the deepest, most protracted, but in severe cases the unique method for curing. He compared Psychoanalysis with digging out, excava