Some Psycho-Analytic Aspects of Biography1

The developments of psycho-analysis and biography in the course of recent years have been such that, in a sense, the two have become identical. Psycho-analysis, together with anthropology, biology, and sociology, plays an essential part in the science of man. The unconscious processes of an individual are indispensable for the understanding of his character and personality. A therapeutic or training analysis attempts to bring to light all material from earliest infancy. The analysand is compelled to deliver his autobiography, so to speak; the analyst—I would coin a new word—is the biolistener. A complete analysis should not leave any gaps. After a few years, this biography of a patient or a candidate comes to an end, although speculations about the predictability of the future course of his life suggest themselves. While a scientific analysis has to go back to the earliest years of infancy and even to prenatal influences, this seemed impossible where biographies of great men are concerned. The study of the lives and works of such men does not carry with it the obligation to change them. But therapeutic and training analysis have this obligation. To paraphrase a statement by Karl Marx, who said: 'Philosophers merely give different interpretations of the world, but the real task is to change it, ' I would say: 'Psycho-analytic psychology can give different interpretations of a neurotic personality, but the real task is to change it.'

Creative imagination has always been a subject of the liveliest interest, and will be so in the future. Despite many contributions to the subject, the pessimism Freud expressed in his Leonardo da Vinci still appears justified. The main impression gathered so far is that an inner conflict of some kind is essential for this process. But it has not yet been proved that such a typical prerequisite actually exists. On the occasion of receiving the Goethe Prize, Freud admitted that 'We have not been very successful in the case of