S.
7 February l9O9 New York
Dear Professor Freud,
«IP4,0»At last my American trip has come off, and very interesting has it proved. I have so many impressions at present that I must select a few that will most interest you.
I got first to Boston, and was exceedingly well received by all the University people there and was fêted hard for five days. Three things of interest happened. First we arranged a congress in Psychotherapy to be held on May 6. The President of the American Therapeutic Society is getting it up, «FN1.××Frederick Henry Gerrish, M. D. 1869 Medical School of Maine, organized the meeting of the American Therapeutic Society, New Haven, Conn., 6 May 1909.
» and invited what he considered to be the [eight] «FN1.××Crossed out in the original.» seven most promiment men on the subject in America to take part. They are Prince, Waterman, Sidis, E. W. Taylor, Tom Williams, Putnam and myself.«FN1.××G. A. Waterman, M. D. 1899 Harvard; E. W. Taylor, M. D. 1891 Harvard; Tom A. Williams, M. B., C. M. 1896 Edinburgh; as well as Prince, Sidis, Putnam and Jones, were all trained physicians with specific interests in psychotherapy and psychopathology. The most important of this group was James Jackson Putnam (1846‑1918), one of America's most distinguished neurologists. He was head of neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital between 1874 and 1909, and in 1893 was appointed Professor of Diseases of the Nervous System at Harvard Medical School. He made a major commitment to psychoanalysis after Freud's appearance at Worcester, Mass., September 1909.
» The President also will read a paper on Hypnotism, making eight. My paper is called "Psycho‑analysis in Psychotherapy". «FN1.××Jones (1909c).» At my suggestion the papers will be published first in Prince's journal, and then as a brochure «FN1.××Prince et al. (1910).
» to be sold throughout America as an official announcement of its best men, (God forgive them!).
Secondly in May there will be formed an American Society for Psychopathology («MDUL»oder so etwas«MDNM»), which will meet annually beginning in May, l9lO.«FN1.××See note 1 to letter 32.
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Thirdly a special meeting was arranged by Prince to hear me expound your theories. William James couldn't come, but all the others were there, l6 of them, Prof. Münsterberg, Prof. Putnam (psychology and neurology respectively at Harvard), Prof. Dearborn (Physiology) etc., etc..«FN1.××William James (1842‑1910), M. D. 1869 Harvard, one of America's foremost psychologists and philosophers. He taught physiology at Harvard College between 1872 and 1876, and his researches in physiological psychology culminated in the monumental «MDUL»The Principles of Psychology«MDNM» (1890). Hugo Münsterberg (1863‑1916), German born, American psychologist, Ph.D. 1885 under Wundt, Leipzig, took charge of the psychological laboratory at Harvard in 1892; of philosophical bent, made contributions to psychology of learning, forensic and industrial psychology. George V. N. Dearborn, M. D. 1893 Columbia; Professor of Physiology, Tufts Medical School, Boston; also had research interests in experimental psychology.
» I had to address them and then expound and answer questions for four hours. I think that such personal work often does much more than writing, for one can instantly correct misunderstandings and false ideas that come up. It seemed to be a great success, judging from the complimentary congratulations I had. They were sympathetically inclined and very interested, especially in the sexual part. One must not hope too much however from it, for they are the only people in America at all interested in Psychotherapy, and even they are so concerned in money making as to do practically no original work or observations. The main difficulty was their colossal ignorance. So far I have not met «MDUL»one«MDNM»«FN1.××Doubly underlined in the original.
» man in America, except of course Brill, who has even «MDUL»read«MDNM» the «MDUL»Traumdeutung«MDNM». Even Sidis, who has worked at dreams for six years, and who has nearly completed a big book on the subject hasn't read it, though he tells me he is "going to". I think I managed to convince them of their ignorance, and some may perhaps take up the study. Putnam is the most hopeful, but he is aged 66. Isn't it absurd to criticise from their abysmal distance. The objections were of the usual order, Hineinexaminierung, phantasti[s]che Deutung, Überschätzung der sexuallen Motiven, etc.«FN1.××Examination from the inside, fanciful interpretation, overestimation of sexual motives, etc.
» that you are so familiar with. Prince is a great believer in Psychical Shock and can't understand how you came to "overlook it". He says trauma disrupt the mind with their intensity. To illustrate this Münsterberg, who treats patients, said that he traced a case of hysterical vomiting and gastric pain to the emotional shock of swallowing a hot potato, though he confessed that the discovery had made no difference to the symptoms. I drily said that we did not regard the swallowing of hot potatoes as the kind of factor that was important in the pathogenesis of the psychoneuroses, and the audience laughed, but it needs a deal of patience to listen to things like that. Prince is not prudish on sex ideas. His main trouble is a more or less philosophic one of the Subconscious, which is worrying him tremendously, especially because he couldn't get a clear idea of your views on the subject. Your Unbewusste he divides into two, (1) Co‑conscious (? verdrängte Ideen), ideas usually inaccessible to the personal consciousness but which reveal themselves indirectly as symptoms and experimentally in automatic writing, crystal gazing etc.. (2) Unconscious, which is not psychical at all, but physiological complexes i.e. physical changes in the molecules of the cortex. This comprises most of our conserved memories etc., which can enter consciousness, thus becoming psychical, by being called up through associations.«FN1.××Prince regarded the "subconscious" as a clinical category, derived from phenomenal facts. For Prince, the "subconscious" included a) "coconscious" ideas or processes that were dissociated from the conscious personality and that led an autonomous existence apart from it, and b) "unconscious" memories or ideas which were temporarily inactive. The coconscious, which corresponded to Janet's "subconscious," was a parallel well‑organized system of awareness comparable with consciousness; whereas the unconscious was a kind of storehouse of neurograms, the physiological records of psychological behaviour. (Hart, 1909‑10, pp. 353‑354; and Prince, 1908‑09, pp. 261‑297). On the other hand, for Freud, the "unconscious" was a conceptual category devised to explain the phenomena (Hart, 1909‑10, p. 365). Significantly, before 1909 the Americans debated the issues about what the "subconscious" represented, and Freud's concept of the "unconscious" was not discussed or employed on a wide scale until after his American visit of September 1909. In his early writings Jones frequently used the term "subconscious," even in his psychoanalytically oriented papers, for example, in his first one, Jones (1908d).
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Are you reading the series of articles he is writing on the subject in his journal at present.«FN1.××Prince (1908‑09).
» I think you ought to, for he criticises your views severely and he is a man of considerable influence here. He is personally a very agreeable man, rough, breezy, hearty, with a lawyer‑like, hard and fast, cut and dried mind, fond of definitions. He does not read much, but has had considerable experience of hysteria, especially from the experimental side. He has read the «MDUL»Studien«MDNM», the «MDUL»Drei Abhandlungen«MDNM», and the «MDUL»Sammlung«MDNM», but not the dream books, the «MDUL»Witz«MDNM», or the «MDUL»Bruchstück«MDNM».
Boris Sidis«FN1.××Boris Sidis (1876‑1923), M. D. 1908 Harvard; previously studied under William James and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1897, the first from Harvard with a specialty in psychopathology.
» is a Russian, very objectionable personally, very egotistic and exceedingly shut to ideas not his own. He is 39, (Prince is 54). He is dead opposed to all your work, chiefly because he has a cure for the neuroses by hynoidization ‑‑ which consists simply in getting the patient half way to hypnotism and getting access to their stores of subconscious energy! He has just published huge articles disproving «MDUL»all«MDNM» the European work on the Psychogalvanic reflex and it is accepted here.«FN1.××The psychogalvanic reflex is the change in the electrical resistance of the body of a human subject registered by a galvanometer after the application of external tactile, optic, or acoustic stimuli. See Jung (1907b), Jung and Peterson (1907), Jung and Ricksher (1907‑08), and Sidis and Kalmus (1908‑09).
» He says the emotional variation in the current is due not to an increase in resistance, but to a new current generated in the body, mainly in the intestines. This thesis confirms the James‑Lange theory of the emotions!!«FN1.××The theory which treats emotion as the derivative of an organism's initial physical/physio~logical response to a situation.
» James and Prince think an enormous lot of him.
Putnam is a delightful old man, meek, humble, learned, well‑read, idealistic, but easily swayed in all directions.
You see the problems here are peculiar to the Anglo‑Saxon race, and one must know nicely the kinds of currents and prejudices in order to combat them most successfully. I am sure it is important to aim first at the recognised people, and not to popularise too soon. There is so much vulgarisation and exploitation of everything here, that one has a strong weapon in insisting on the exact scientific side of the subject, and that is what I mean to do. Also I want to be generally recognised in neurology and psychology or other fields, so that one's influence will be greater and one will be more readily listend to. A man who writes always on the same thing is apt to be regarded here as a crank, because to the superficial American every subject is easily exhausted except for cranks, and if the subject is sexual he is simply tabooed as a sexual neurasthenic. Hence I shall dilute my sex articles with articles on other subjects alternately. I also think it is important to give first the more elementary points and to link them with recognised psychological principles, so as to get them accepted. If one begins with the latest pinnacle of the towering edifice, it must appear in the air to the passer bye, if the supports are not also shewn. For that reason I deplore Brill's article in the Journal.«FN1.××Brill (1908‑09).
» It created a great deal of hostility and ridicule in Boston, as might have been expected, and did no good at all. The reason was that he gave so many distant, recondite, and apparently forced interpretations, as to appear extremely uncritical to the readers. Brill is an exceedingly clever worker with patients. I greatly admire his capacity for quick interpretation and his ability in the management of patients, but I do not consider him a good scientific exponent. He is so carried away by his personal glow of satisfaction and excitement as to forget altogether his audience. He much resembles Stekel in the contrast between his personal success and his public failure ‑‑ but the latter is a more important matter in America where the situation is so delicate at present and so much depends on the pioneers. Brill is also in a rather shut circle and cannot estimate the general feeling and attitude amongst psychologists and neurologists throughout the country.
Outside Boston there is little interest in psychopathology, except in psychiatry, and psychotherapy ‑‑ except the Weir‑Mitchell kind«FN1.××S. Weir Mitchell (1829‑1914), American neurologist who advocated a form of therapy typically known as the 'rest cure', which included not only relaxation and bed rest, but also good nutrition, daily massage, and removal of occupational pressures.
» ‑‑ is regarded with much disfavour. Even the conservative Boston People are regarded with great suspicion as tending towards spiritism, quackery etc., etc..
The general quality of the neurologists and psychiatrists in America is much poorer than I expected. They are chiefly what is here called "business" people, being concerned mainly with making money. August Hoch and Adolf Meyer are the two psychiatrists that stand out from all the rest.«FN1.××August Hoch (1868‑1919), Swiss born, American psychiatrist, taught at Cornell University Medical School (1905‑1917), and in 1910 took charge of the Psychiatric Institute, Ward's Island, New York. He was instrumental in introducing Kraepelin's classification system in North America, and made contributions to the psychological study of the psychoses. Adolf Meyer (1866‑1950), Swiss born, American psychiatrist of the first rank, M. D. 1892 Zürich. He held important posts at the State Lunatic Hospital, Worcester, Mass. (1896‑1901); the Pathological Institute of the New York State Hospitals; and after 1908 at The Johns Hopkins University, where he became Professor of Psychiatry, and first director of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic. He remained sympathetic to psychoanalysis, although he developed his own brand of functional psychiatry.
» I had some hours' talk with Meyer yesterday. He fully accepts all your work and theories though I do not believe he has had much experience of actual analysis. He is a strong believer in the sex origin of the psycho‑neuroses and also the insanities. Like myself he holds to the full psychogenesis of dementia pr[a]ecox and does not find it necessary to draw in Jung's X factor.«FN1.××Jung postulated that in the metabolism of those suffering from dementia praecox, there exist toxins which injure the brain irreparably so that the highest psychic functions become paralysed. According to Jung, the toxin was not produced by the body, organically, but by the dementia praecox complex itself, see Jung (1907a).
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If there is any point about these people or about any other matter that I can give you information on, please let me know. My publications are slow, as I have a tremendous lot of routine work that takes all my time, but my nightmare article will be out in April.«FN1.××Jones (1910m).» We are looking forward greatly to the Fritz case in the «MDUL»Jahrbuch«MDNM». «FN1.××Jones is referring to the case of "Little Hans", see Freud (1909b).
» I enjoyed the reprint you kindly sent me from the «MDUL»Mutterschutz«MDNM» and also your article in the «MDUL»Deutsche Revue«MDNM» I managed to get lately. «FN1.××Freud (1908c); and Freud (1908e), which came out in the «MDUL»Neue Revue«MDNM».
» I hope the second volume of your «MDUL»Sammlung«MDNM» will be out soon.
With kind regards Yours very sincerely Ernest Jones.
