An abridged version of this letter appeared in the New York Times, December 11, 1994.
Ms. Nasar, who wrote a moving article about the life of Nobel laureate John Forbes Nash, Jr., in the New York Times of November 13, 1994, ridicules as “absurd” the hypothesis that his wife's pregnancy played a role in precipitating his decompensation with a paranoid schizophrenic disorder in the 1950s. The idea of fetus envy is dismissed as Freudian nonsense. Regardless of the degree to which the idea that a man may envy a woman's capacity to procreate is given much credence by psychoanalysts then or now, there is widespread consensus among psychoanalysts and psychiatrists that having a first baby is often highly stressful for both husband and wife. There are often a wide variety of psychodynamic concerns, including feelings about moving to the status of a parent, capability of being a good parent, the possibility the baby will be abnormal, and the degree of responsibility being shouldered.
The causes of schizophrenic disorders are unknown, though both genetic predispositions and environmental factors have been implicated. As with the causes, the precipitating elements are also unknown. It is therefore not possible to know that a particular circumstance is not playing a precipitating role. Ms. Nasar has no basis for characterizing as absurd the hypothesis that his wife's pregnancy played a role in precipitating Nash's decompensation, any more than she has for dismissing any other hypothetical factor.
“It was just then,” writes Nasar, “when life seemed so very sweet [he had been awarded tenure at M.I.T. and his wife became pregnant] that John Nash got sick.” For some individuals, life becoming especially sweet and successful, paradoxically, constitutes an overwhelming stress. This was first graphically described by Freud in 1911. A Dr. Schreber seemed to have been precipitated into a full-blown paranoid schizophrenic decompensation by the honor of being appointed Senatspräsident (presiding judge) of a court in Dresden. Reports of psychoanalytic treatment over decades have made the concept fear of success such a part of our language that it has been reduced almost to a cliché.
Ms. Nasar's gratuitous contempt for psychoanalysis seems part of the ill-informed psychoanalysis bashing that is enjoying such a vogue at this time. I think if she were better informed and less susceptible to the pressures of current political correctness she would develop a more objective and balanced view of psychoanalysis.
Joseph Schachter, M.D., Ph.D.
Pittsburgh
Letters to the editor, not to exceed 400 words, may be sent to William D. Jeffrey, M.D., c/o the American Psychoanalytic Association, 309 East 49th Street, New York, NY 10017.