Book Review

The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones, 1908-1939

N Engl J Med 1994; 330:579February 24, 1994

Article

The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Ernest Jones, 1908-1939
Edited by R. Andrew Paskauskas. 836 pp. Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1993. $39.95. ISBN: 0-674-15423-1

Collections of Freud's correspondence with particular people make up a substantial category of the Freud literature. The Letters of Sigmund Freud to Eduard Silberstein, 1871-1881, edited by Walter Boehlich (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1990), was published recently, and books of Freud's correspondence with Sandor Ferenczi and G. Stanley Hall are in press. Among the recently published books of Freud's correspondence, this collection stands out, for it records the complex relationship of Freud and Ernest Jones, author of the classic three-volume biography of Freud and certainly one of the most productive and energetic members of Freud's inner circle.

The correspondence begins in May 1908, with a letter from Jones to Freud shortly after their first meeting; it ends in September 1939, with a letter from Jones thanking and encouraging Freud, who died that month of cancer. The letters reveal more, perhaps, about Jones than about Freud. Jones's early letters are obsequious and deferential. The later letters, though always polite, reveal increasing differences between the two men over the politics of psychoanalysis, the motives of others, and psychoanalytic technique. In reply, Freud was commanding and paternalistic. The letters are at times deeply moving, as when Jones, at the age of 50, describes his despair at the death of his 7-year-old daughter or when Freud writes about political events of the 1930s in Europe. At other times they are tense, as when Freud falsely assumes Jones had been having sexual relations with one of his patients. Tension is also evident when Freud criticizes Jones for his inadequate analysis of Joan Riviere (whom Freud had begun reanalyzing) and when Jones criticizes Anna Freud's view of child psychoanalysis, saying she had been incompletely analyzed, since she was analyzed by Freud himself. At times the correspondence reveals unexpected aspects of Freud's approach to analysis, as when he discusses with Jones his analysis of Jones's mistress, Loe Kann. The revelations continued even after Jones and Kann had separated.

The letters chronicle not only the complexities of the Jones-Freud relationship, but also the complexities of psychoanalysis as a movement. The correspondence reflects the preoccupation of both Jones and Freud with the success of the psychoanalytic movement and the considerable political acumen they used to ensure its success. For example, Jones, always sensitive to the public image of psychoanalysis, wrote Freud of his concern about Freud's interest in psychic research, believing that if this were publicized it would compromise the efforts of the movement to attain scientific status. And both Jones and Freud reveal their mortification at the breaking away of prominent members such as Jung and Rank.

Particularly intriguing are their views of psychoanalysis in the United States. Both Jones and Freud were cynical about American culture, but paradoxically they viewed the success of psychoanalysis there as critical to the success of the movement as a whole. Both held American culture in contempt, and Freud wrote at one point, “I have always said that America is useful for nothing but giving money.”

The book contains an illuminating introduction by Riccardo Steiner. The editor's footnotes are thoughtful and detailed and clarify many otherwise obscure references. The editor has translated the portions of the correspondence written in German, appropriately noting ambiguities and problems with the translation. This book represents a valuable addition to the materials available for the scholarly study of Freud in his cultural and social context. It is recommended to all who are interested in Freud, his inner circle, and the development of the psychoanalytic movement.

Samuel B. Thielman, M.D., Ph.D.
Asheville, NC 28801