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I am thrilled and extremely grateful that I am able to attend this wonderful celebration. I am the youngest of the Horney daughters. My father always said that the desire for a son was the father of many daughters. I was my parents' last desire.
In about 1924 my mother, excited about the newest idea that early childhood analysis would prevent neurosis in the adult, sent her three daughters to the Freudian couch of Melanie Klein. I will read from my Lazarus, What's Next? A Memoir to take you to that time in our lives with Mother.
As I lay on the hard, ominous couch, Melanie asked me to talk about my thoughts and dreams. Being a lively, healthy eight-year-old, I told of climbing trees and playing Indians. The therapist's long reply startled my innocent ears. All my thoughts, she said, had to do with penis envy and anus play. Although proud of having been told to make the long trip by bus and subway to her office alone, I soon found a way to get there ever so slowly. Arriving late, I would dive not onto but underneath the terrible couch, with my fingers pressed firmly in my ears. Messy nightmares haunted my nights. Thus, on a rainy afternoon with nothing else to do, I suggested to Nati that we should write letters to people and drop them in their mailboxes. What fun I had writing all that I had learned on the couch and signing the letters, “Greetings from your Fart.”
It did not take long for my letters to arrive back home, along with indignant complaints. How my parents must have laughed, but with Father's strictest face, he pronounced, “Nacki, you must go to every house where you dropped a letter and say, ‘Excuse me, I am Fart. I accidentally dropped something here!’” With tears of shame, I paced back and forth in front of the first door. I had promised, so I had to ring the bell. A maid opened it, I rambled my sentence and fled. At home, I pleaded, “Please, was not one house enough?” My parents burst out laughing. Hugging me, Mother proclaimed, “So much for child analys