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The material published in this little pamphlet originally appeared in the “Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse,” Bd. XII , Heft I, under the title “Eine Kindheitserinnerung atts dem 6 Lebensmonat,” and is concerned with the recollection of a very early experience,
in connection with which there are several features inviting discussion.
According to Professor Freud the author is “a man of strong and independent intelligence who probably on account of a certain wilfulness of character, could not get on well with the two analysts with whom he experimented. He then had recourse to a consistent application of the process of self analysis which I had once used myself in order to analyze my own dreams. His results deserve notice, especially because of his special individuality and his technique.” However, the author states that he developed his process of self analysis in order to improve his health through the free association method which was not followed exactly by his two psychoanalysts; at any rate 650 hours of self analysis were spent before the striking incident was recalled.
The incident is as follows:
“One night, when the writer was about six months old, he was in bed at his mother's breast, and lying on his right side on the left-hand side of the bed (looking down from the head of the bed). His mother was near the middle and his father was lying near the right-hand side. The baby was busy sucking and had not by any means finished. However, about this time, his father and mother each made a noise which, at a later date, the writer unconsciously realized was a conversation, i. e., when he knew what conversations were—not so very long after the incident occurred, and years before the incident was recovered in consciousness by free-association. His father then got out of bed, walked round the bottom of it and took the baby away from his mother. This was very much resented for, as already stated, he had not finished his meal and was still very hungry. However,