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I would like to begin by quoting my colleague Lila Kalinich, who wrote the following in connection with a seminar on the Wolf Man some 30 years ago:
I can think of few fates worse than having one's life and psychology reviewed and re-interpreted by generations of psychoanalysts. To me, this is a vision of Hell that rivals both Dante and Steven Spielberg, a prison of mindless pretensions encasing a life. Yet such was the destiny of the Wolf-Man, Freud's most famous case. Since the inception of his analysis in 1910, his pimples, bowel movements, sexual preferences and dreams have preoccupied scores of Freudian friends and foes. (1994, p. 167)
While there may be an element of humorous hyperbole here, we are indebted to Kalinich for reminding us of the very human dimension of the experience of Sergei Pankejeff. Her comments capture something important about the fate of this icon of psychoanalysis, both during his long life, and since his death in 1979, almost 70 years from the time he began his famous analysis with Freud. His analysis and second treatment with Freud in the late teens, his treatment with Ruth Mack Brunswick in the 1920s, and his long friendship and follow-up with Muriel Gardiner have been amply detailed elsewhere. His longevity provided six decades more interaction with various members of the analytic community. Subsequent to his death, several generations of clinicians, literary critics, and others have now had the opportunity to interpret and re-interpret his life and psychology, as well as Freud's famous treatment of him. All psychoanalysts, in a sense, are indebted to him, and as Kalinich suggests, we have not always been as respectful or appreciative as we might have been.