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“From the History of an Infantile Neurosis” (1918), Freud's case of the Wolf Man, is a memorable part of any candidate's experience of psychoanalytic training. Who can forget being dazzled by Freud's complex reconstructions, puzzling over Freud's long theoretical exegeses or being bewildered by the arguments against Jung or Adler? Or reading the dream of the white wolves for the first time? In this case, like all of Freud's cases, one is taken not only into Freud's treatment of Serge Pankejeff, but into Freud's mind as he gradually takes apart the Wolf Man's story and reconstructs it in an evocative and powerful way.
However, despite its mythic status, is the case of the Wolf Man actually an essential part of analytic training? We may be attached to it as a touchstone, but is that an argument sufficient enough for someone wanting to be a practicing analyst to read it? In this collection of papers on the 100th anniversary of the publication of Freud's “From the History of an Infantile Neurosis,” I want to argue for the place of the Wolf Man case in contemporary psychoanalytic education.
Looking back at the case from the distance of 100 years, “From the History of an Infantile Neurosis” is an explosion of narrative plurality; the Wolf Man's adult journey through the psychiatric vanguard of his time, his childhood journey through his love and hate of those that cared for him, and the story of his treatment as an adult with Freud. At our century's distance, we can see interwoven in the Wolf Man's story another story: that of Freud as he fought with those that he loved and hated, Jung and Adler in particular.
“From the History of an Infantile Neurosis” is without a doubt Freud's most detailed and ambitious case history. Jones (1955) describes it as the finest and most complete of Freud's cases: