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This book deals with an issue that has enormous significance for psychoanalytic theory and the relationship of the family in the development of personality disorders in the individual. In particular, it deals with the famous Schreber case which was the basis for Freud's conception of paranoia. Freud visualized paranoia as a defense against inner pressures towards some homosexual involvement which were entirely unacceptable to the patient. These latent homosexual trends were dealt with by the now famous formula “I (a man) love (a man) which ultimately becomes—I am hated by them because of the unacceptability of the homosexual feelings.” It is entirely an intrapsychic process and only vaguely related to the family or cultural situation. This formulation not only enshrined the questionably valid concept of latent homosexuality but the notion that paranoia is directly related to homosexual issues.
For some time many psychodynamic theorists have taken issue with the formulation about paranoia which was derived exclusively by Freud's review of Judge Schreber's description of his illness and his life. Schatzman in his book has convincingly demonstrated that the process that Freud viewed as a defense against homosexuality could be understood more meaningfully and validly in terms of the very doctrine which constitutes Freud's greatest contribution, namely the influence of the family and the parents on the offspring. Thus Freud who was familiar with and had access to all of Judge Schreber's father's writing either overlooked, by passed or considered them to be irrelevant to the later psychotic productions of the son. By his failure to apply his own insights and by focusing too exclusively on the vicissitudes of the id and the mechanics of the libidinal development he failed to note that the details of Judge Schreber's delusions were directly related to his father's teaching and philosophy as Niederland (1959) has researched with skill and scholarship. Thus what has been painf