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The Confessions (1) of Jean Jacques Rousseau reveal important genetic factors in his character development. A psychoanalytic study of this material, while not fully explaining his genius, can show how these factors played a vital role in some of the major events and literary productions of his life.
The Confessions were written during the period 1765–1770, toward the close of his life when he was traveling from country to country, harassed, and clearly in a paranoid state. Rousseau freely admits that much of the early material is untrustworthy, due to the caprice of his memory. Some critics have suggested that he was guilty of deliberately falsifying important events. Rousseau nevertheless takes great pains to speak with uttermost candor of the ridiculousness and humiliation of his masochistic perversion, exhibitionism, petty thefts, and sexual inadequacy. Allowing for the masochistic and exhibitionistic components of this self-revelation, one wonders what further motive Rousseau could have had for confabulation. In any case, verity is not essential in the psychoanalytic examination of character. In autobiography, as in free association, confabulations assume even greater importance in understanding the fantasy life of the author. However, the famous 'oak tree incident' will, because of its historical interest, be more critically examined.
The Confessions and other works of Rousseau were previously studied by René Laforgue who published a penetrating article in 1930 (2). Laforgue noted that Rousseau, whose mother died during his delivery, identified himself with her and developed a latent homosexual organization, often close to consciousness. To atone for his mother's death, he had to