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The Continuing Forum is open to all readers so that they may send their reactions, suggestions, criticism and contributions to the topics which are presented in The Psychoanalytic Forum.
(Dr. Millet's discussion of “The Influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on Freud's Wolf-Man: A Hypothesis” [The Psychoanalytic Forum, Vol. 2, No. 2] was received after The Forum went to press.)
John A. P. Millet, M.D., in his more than 50 years in psychiatry and psychoanalysis has achieved many honors. A few among them are: Professor of Psychiatry and Assistant Dean, New York School of Psychiatry; Consultant to the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Clinic; President of the Academy of Psychoanalysis. His numerous publications range from psychosomatic studies to studies of the family to his recently published “The History of Psychoanalysis in the United States.”
Dr. Lubin has written a scholarly postscript to the psychoanalytic studies of the Wolf-Man's recurrent illness and its subsequent remission. Furthermore, he has been courageous enough to go to headquarters for comments on the conclusions to which his theories had led him. It is indeed fortunate that, through the good offices of Dr. Muriel Gardiner, he was given such an unparalleled opportunity to meet the subject of his researches and thus to confirm or refute the correctness of his hypothetical interpretations.
It is to his credit, furthermore, that, in commenting on the associations which his questions called forth, he says: “He wanted to help me prove my thesis. Hence I am not certain that they were bona fide associations. At least, though, they indicate that he was well informed about the rituals and art of the church at the time of the childhood dream.” This point, as will be seen, was of the greatest importance in making possible a corrected meaning for the disappearance of the wolf phobia during his treatment with Freud.
Dr. Lubin states a twofold purpose in undertaking his study: first, to study “possible influen