SIGMUND FREUD was born in the small town of Freiberg, Austria, now the Czech Republic. In this Special Edition of The American Psychoanalyst, we celebrate that day, 150 years ago, with 11 articles from distinguished members of the American Psychoanalytic Association and invited guests. This issue seeks to set off a few depth charges to sound the water's depth and, as though with sonar, to map the contours of the intellectual seabed.
Peter Loewenberg, in his article on “Freud as a Cultural Historian,” quotes W.H. Auden describing Freud as “a whole climate of opinion.” Writing an overview, “Predicting the Future of Psychoanalysis,” Sander Abend notes that the high point of psychoanalytic treatment may be past, but Freud's increasing importance in countries of the Middle East and Asia suggests a challenge to arguments that he is solely a product of fin-de-siècle Vienna. Yet Elizabeth Ann Danto, in her article, “At What Cost? Perspectives from the History of the Free Psychoanalytic Clinics,” points out the powerful impact on Freud of turn-of-the-century social democracy.
We have attempted to stand in the historical moment and raise necessary questions about the future. So Robert Michels questions whether the goal of psychoanalytic education is to train effective practitioners in the community or advance the growth of psychoanalytic theory. And Robert Paul finds that contemporary anthropologists, split between evolutionary and biological thinkers and cultural thinkers, must be challenged by Freud's ease in moving between the two realms. Mark Smaller, in an interview, engages Mark Solms in a discussion about his involvement with neuro-psychoanalysis, the physiological correlates of psychic functions that Freud hoped would be established. And Henry Smith, looking at technique, considers the ubiquity of necessary enactments in the world of transference.
We have been pleased so many noted authors have agreed to participate in our forum. The humanities, as seen above and below, have provided fertile fields for psychoanalytic thinking. Naomi Janowitz traces a number of contemporary responses to Freud's contributions to religious studies. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl discusses the impact of a concept from
outside psychoanalysis, “gender,” on psychoanalytic thinking. Eschewing the traditional psychoanalytic approach to aesthetics paralleling the interpretation of dreams, Gilbert Rose investigates the importance of form in nonverbal art. In his two-pronged essay, Peter Loewenberg reveals the importance of empathy and imagination in historical research and understanding and, in counterpoint to Danto, points to Freud's pessimism.
How we read Freud is still an art of controversy. New translations of Freud are appearing in English and in French in this, the 21st century. Emmett Wilson discusses the English and German standard editions in this new, and invigorating, context.
All in all, on publication of our forum, which could easily have been enhanced by many times over the number of contributions, we are convinced that psychoanalysis is thriving in this, the year of Freud's sesquicentennial.
—Michael Slevin
Editor, TAP