Freud's Self-Analysis and the Inner Life of Contemporary Refugees

Any reader of this article might become a refugee in the unknown future. In spite of this threat, the psychological aspects of the refugee's existence have not yet been adequately evaluated. The deeper features of the refugee problem seem to be a taboo-even in psychoanalytic circles. Regardless of sincere sympathy with refugees, the non refugee feels insecure when confronted with his or her potential mirror image of the future, that is, with the threat of being stripped of his or her current personal identity. The lack of more encompassing research in this field and, partly, the lack of interest among some readers are symptomatic of maladaptive ego defenses. Very frequently, people intellectualize the refugee problem into an abstract statistic so that they can mentally avoid both the full emotional impact and a logical assessment of the consequences. Typically, the painful but adaptively valuable personal confrontation on the existential level is avoided - a confrontation with the alter ego, the other very different and yet very similar person. Above all, the hosts expect gratitude or admiration from the refugee, not a warning. Some of the hosts may feel inconvenienced and perceive the newly arrived as an intruder who will compete for employment opportunities or just take up space. A priori, the refugee may be misperceived as potentially obstructing rather than as stimulating the economic growth and social development of the host country.

The present paper deals with the case history of a prominent Central European refugee: Sigmund Freud. To some readers, this may sound like blasphemy because the term refugee, within their system of concepts and values, evokes unsavory associations. Many prefer to view refugees and other immigrants as psychopathic individuals, too careless or unskilled to be sufficiently rooted to stay where they are. In a larger sense of the term, the label of refugee could already be applied to Freud during his childhood,