A Return to Rome?

Dear Sir:

The famous stone Bocca della Verità in Rome was well-chosen as a symbol for the just-completed 36th International Psychoanalytical Congress held in that city. Psychoanalysis has from its beginnings insisted that patients and analysts observe the truths of the analytic situation, even though it be at times painful.

Freud's visit to Rome in 1901 was, as is well-known, of enormous symbolic importance to him.1 Within the framework of this highly charged visit, his episode with the 'Bocca' was itself of importance. He included this description of it in a letter to Fliess:

I not only bribed the Trevi (fountain), as everyone does, I also—and I invented this myself— dipped my hand into the Bocca della Verità at Santa Maria Cosmedin and vowed to return (Letter of 19 September 1901).2

The above quotation, included in the final Congress Programme, indicates that the organizers were well aware of its significance and that, in common with the majority of the local population, were acquainted with the popular legend around the 'Bocca'. This is a legend that may also have been known to Freud, though, at a guess, few members of the Congress would have been informed about it. It was said that if the person who thrust his hand into the 'Bocca' were not truthful, then his hand would be 'bitten' off. The preservation of his limb would represent proof of his truthfulness. As we know, Freud's visit to Rome not only represented to him the attainment of the object of his desire, but that it was for this very reason connected with unconsciously perceived dangers.

We also wish to note that, in this letter to Fliess, Freud highlights his sense of isolation and loneliness in his search for truth. Here he contrasts his bribe of the Trevi fountain, a common touristic ritual, with his self-invented test of his truthfulness, a test he undergoes alone.

In the same letter Freud observes yet another contrast in his experience. He wrote to Fliess that while on the one hand he 'was totally