Freud and his Self-Analysis

Edited by Mark Kanzer and Jules Glenn. Volume 1. Downstate Psychoanalytic Institute. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Series. New York: Jason Aronson. 1979. Pp. 308.

Freud and His Patients. Edited by Mark Kanzer and Jules Glenn. Volume 2. Downstate Psychoanalytic Institute. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Series. New York: Jason Aronson. 1980. Pp. 452.

These are the first two volumes of a new Series launched by the Downstate Psychoanalytic Institute of New York. As Alan J. Eisnitz, Director, (1972–1975) tells us in his brief Preface, the Institute was founded in 1949, by Howard Patter and Sandor Lorand. The record of the Institute, both as a teaching set-up and in producing creative writers in psychoanalysis during the twenty-five years of its fresh life, has been quite impressive. This was no small achievement, considering it had to compete with the New York Psychoanalytic Society on the one hand, and the Alanson White Institute on the other. Never having taken a factionist stand, it was able to work with senior members of both the other Institutes. Therefore, a publication of its own is indeed welcome.

Following the craze of the past two decades, the editors have chosen to collect articles, around the theme of Freud's self-analysis. Thirteen of the eighteen chapters have already been published in various psychoanalytic journals and books. One encounters, amongst others, contributions by Max Schur, Kanzer, Shengold and Blum.

Mark Kanzer, in his Introduction to the first volume, states explicitly the bias and conviction of the contributors:

Freud's career would be built on his own proclivity to mercilessly dissect his own feelings and to help the Emil Flusses [Kanzer's plural] do the same.

Kanzer spells out the routes of such self-examinations by Freud through his correspondences etc. As one reads through the book, one is impressed by the earnestness with which analysts apply themselves to an epistemological necromancy of Freudian private and personal texts, which o