OK, Springer said I can’t republish the paper, I even called Germany and then Netherlands. Now they are in charge of the “Contemporary Jewry” magazine. But I can quote.
UPDATE – 7/1/2011: The full text of the paper has been liberated from behind the pay wall by Springer. I uploaded it here for your use and redundancy: A Rabbi, a Priest, and a Psychoanalyst: Religion in the Early Psychoanalytic Case History by Maya Balakirsky Katz (PDF).
According to Maya Katz her first paper was about “reading” Stekel’s psychoanalysis of Rashab and this second paper is about how the case was actually “written”. It was one of the first major cases for the new discipline, both Freud and Stekel collaborated in the analysis and in the narrative. Both perhaps were self-conscious about the case of an ostjude playing such a central role. Maya speculates that the analysis of the priest immediately following the case of der rabbiner was created to balance the Rabbi and perhaps even some details of the Rabbi’s case bled into the case of the Priest. In the article Maya also takes the opportunity to reply to the objection raised in response to the original article. My idol Shaya Berlin makes a cameo appearance from the start. Wait that’s a different Shaya Berlin, the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin was born in 1909 and the forthcoming letter was written in 1903 to the grandfather:
A Sign in Riga, The House of Isaiah Berlin. Photo by "Alma Pater"
“In 1903, the 42 year-old Hasidic rebbe Shalom Dovber Schneersohn (1860–1920), known by his devotees as RaSHaB, set out to central Europe to seek treatment for an idiopathic condition in his left hand. In a letter to his cousin Yishaya Berlin of Riga, Latvia from RaSHaB’s home in the Belarusian townlet of Lyubavichi on January 13, 1903, RaSHaB weighed his treatment options: [the letter first publicly introduced online by AGUCH librarian Shalom Dovber Levine on June 22, 2010 in response to my identification of Stekel’s case history of ‘‘der rabbiner’’ as RaSHaB, RaSHaB writes that he went to see Freud who took him to see Professor [Carl] Nothnagel for the pain in his hand…].
‘‘I will, G-d willing, travel to Vienna to inquire in regards to my health. I see the advantages of Berlin over Vienna. I have not yet decided [where to go], but this is my current thinking. The blessed Lord should give me a complete recovery soon among [the ill of Israel]’’
Upon his arrival in Vienna later that month, RaSHaB wrote again to his cousin regarding the tedious process of obtaining a diagnosis:
‘‘I was by Professor [Sigmund] Freud the neurologist whereupon he referred me to Professor [Carl] Nothnagel.They both agreed that the suffering of my hand is neurological.’’
In other letters, RaSHaB reported frequently on his electromagnetic treatment sessions, as well as his continued search for other potential cures. Nearly a month later, RaSHaB wrote from Vienna,
‘‘I am currently contemplating [traveling to] Paris after I saw that, thank G-d, it [the hand] got a little better, even if the improvement is still only partial….’’ In one letter, written in the middle of his medical tour of Vienna, RaSHaB debated the relative merits of extending his search to Paris or Berlin, concluding that ‘‘Their [Freud’s and Nothnagel’s] advice is to do electromagnetic therapy, which is different than what was already done for me in Kharkov….If I will be able, I may travel from here for a few days to Paris to consult with Professor [Edouard] Brissaud. My son is with me, but if I go to Paris I will travel alone, return here [Vienna], and we will travel home together in peace.’’
RaSHaB’s treatment with Freud was noted by RaSHaB’s son, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, and his grandson-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, but references to none of the other medical practitioners on RaSHaB’s assessment team survived in broader Chabad literature. Scholars have tried in vain to corroborate the clinical relationship between Freud and RaSHaB from the corpus of Freud’s prodigious writings, overlooking a short preface to a section in a little known debut volume Nervöse Angstzustände und ihre Behandlung by his early disciple Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940). In this book—revolutionary and controversial in its time but largely ignored by history—Stekel includes the case of a 42 year-old rabbiner who initially sought treatment from Freud in 1903 for an idiopathic condition in his left hand. Returning to the case of this rabbi throughout his literary career, Stekel repeatedly recounts Freud’s 1903 referral of the case, collaboration in the treatment, and editorial review of the published case history. Comparing the descriptions of the course of treatment as described by RaSHaB and Stekel, it appears that Freud not only referred RaSHaB to Nothnagel, his senior advisor at the University of Vienna, but also to Stekel, a junior colleague who had just opened his psychoanalytic practice. RaSHaB’s visits to Freud, Nothnagel, and Stekel for his non-specified symptoms coincided with the beginning of a diagnostic revolution taking place in Vienna that would lead to one of the most significant modern medical developments: the acknowledgement that mental states played a role in physical effects. In coming to Freud, RaSHaB found himself between the established neurological community at the University of Vienna and the younger psychoanalytic movement that was gaining momentum around Freud. Implicit in Freud’s referral of RaSHaB to Stekel and the subsequent analysis was the conviction that psychoanalysis could cure a disorder that the professors at the University of Vienna pronounced neurological. Success in treating a seemingly neurological disorder with the new ‘‘talking cure’’ would undoubtedly be a coup for Freud and Stekel. At least in its time, the publication of RaSHaB’s case history in 1908 was an important milestone for the burgeoning discipline.”
That chief censor Shalom Dovber Levine, if he has a document from the Barry Gourary Memorial Library that he himself has hidden from the public, than he should have the decency not to slap der emes on it. Or say this:
ברור לחלוטין באופן חד-משמעי שהאדמו”ר לא ביקר אצל הד”ר שטקל
Was he there? Why doesn’t he ask his Levine and Slavin Gurkov grandparents, who endured the Stalinist dictatorship under the banner of its lead paper Pravda, what this word signals. And now their own grandchild in presiding over the ideological censorship machine, hiding from the truth and the history. End of rant.
A historic photo. Wilhelm Stekel on a platform as he crossed into Switzerland on one of the last trains to freely escape the Nazis. Dr. Stekel takes in the last sight of his Austria.
As I wrote before the is a direct line between the psychoanalysis and the Samech Vov just few years later. Maya writes in her footnote 11:
“For my analysis of how RaSHaB was influenced by his experience with and thinking about psychoanalysis in his own post-1903 writings, see Katz (pp. 26–31). In short, RaSHaB posits that if one could accept irrational sin based on repressed desire, one must counter with irrational acts of goodness.”
Maya writes there was a “tight” participation in the case by Sigmund Freud, not only in the narrative of the case but in the psychoanalysis itself.
“The rabbi was Stekel’s ‘‘first real case’’ and marked Stekel’s professional transformation from a University-of-Vienna-trained general practitioner into a psychoanalyst whose credentials would rest predominantly on his clinical reputation (Stekel 1926, p. 133). With his analysis of the rabbi, the young Stekel found himself in Freud’s inner circle, with the published case history contributing to Stekel’s recognition within the psychoanalytic field as a bona fide Freud acolyte. Freud intervened with RaSHaB well beyond the initial referral, acting as Stekel’s supervisor, and taking an unusually heavy hand in the clinical process. Every fortnight, Stekel trekked, together with the rabbi, to Freud’s home office at ‘Bergasse 19’ where all three were present in the room for sessions. With an uncharacteristic admission of clinical weakness, Stekel admitted that the case of the rabbi ‘‘was in fact a risky enterprise. I could have seriously messed up the case (Stekel 1926, p. 133).’’12 By the end of his career, however, Stekel recounted the analysis in triumphant tones: ‘‘After overcoming various resistances, the analysis made good progress and ended with a clear success. I began to feel more confident in the field of psychotherapy—a new world was opened to me. I visited Freud frequently, reported on my observations, and received innumerable stimulations from him’’ (1950, p. 115).”
Looking forward to the liberation of entire paper from behind the academic iron curtain.
The full text of Rashab’s psychoanalysis “Vocational Neurosis” in PDF.
Further reading:
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Here we go again….
For what it’s worth, Yeshaya Berlin was your idols paternal adoptive grandfather for whom he was named. Mendel Berlin (Isaiah’s father) was raised in the home of his uncle, a wealthy man who was married into the greater Schneersohn family and was a confidant and traveling companion of the fourth and fifth Rebbes of Lubavitch. As for your idol himself, let it be said that he was extremely proud of his pedigree and made a point of mentioning it whenever the opportunity presented itself.
This is all you can add to the subject of this post? Can you tell me please what books by Berlin made the most impact on you? Or his heritage would suffice for any value of an extraordinarily human being?
P.S. A “pedigree” is what dogs and chassidim have. Alas Berlin was a thinker, an ideas man, in other words the opposite of a chossid.
As I mentioned elsewhere in the past, I already suspected that Stekel’s study of “the Rabbi” is a composite. The only thing is that we do not know which details relate to the Rashab & which to some other. (In a book by Chiam Bloch, he mentions that Stekel related to him in Vienna a case study of a certain Polish Rabbi with sexual hangups, but different than the details in Stekel’s published study.)
On a side note:
As for Freud’s fallout with Stekel, this did not fully actualize until the mid 1910s. In fact, Stekel was involved with Freud’s mother’s health & medical needs around this time (1912).
Here are some revealing words from Freud about their fallout (letter to Stekel, dated Jan. 1924):
“You are mistaken if you think that I hate you or have ever hated you. The fact is that after an initial sympathy––perhaps you remember how our rela- tionship began––I had reason for many years to be annoyed with you while at the same time I had to defend you against the aversion of everyone around me, and that I broke with you after you had deceived me on a certain occasion in the most heinous manner. (You never mention this occasion––Zentralblatt–– in your letters.) I lost confidence in you at that time and since then you have not provided me with any experience that could help me regain it.
“I also contradict your often repeated assertion that you were rejected by me on account of scientific differences. This sounds quite good in public, but it doesn’t correspond to the truth. It was exclusively your personal qualities–– usually described as character and behaviour––which made collaboration with you impossible for my friends and myself. Since you most certainly will not change––you don’t need to, for nature has endowed you with an unusual degree of self-complacency––our relationship stands no chance of becoming any different from what it has been during the past twelve years. It will not annoy me to learn that your medical and literary activities have earned you success; I admit that you have remained loyal to psychoanalysis and have been of use to it; you have also done it great harm.
“My friends and pupils will find it easier to value your publications objectively when you begin to voice your criticism and polemics in a more polite tone.
“With best wishes
“Yours cordially
“Freud”
Stekel’s response to this, to Freud & to others, reveals that Stekel perceived this acrimony as part of the more general rivalry of F.’s students for F.’s attention. As he wrote to F. in response to the above letter (dated Jan. 1924):
“I do not wish to speak of the past. You see only the injustice done to you and you overlook the mistakes you made. Had you acknowledged the sources from which the rivalry between your students arose in time, you could have retained many useful hands. It was not only a struggle of pre- tenders to the throne, but a competition for your love. It had more to do with jealousy for your heart than a claim on your head.”
As for Stekel’s own disposition, here is what he wrote F. in 1915:
“Be assured, however, that since I overcame my bipolar disposition, which led to defence partly because of your accusation of my having “gone astray”, I have no other feelings for you than honour and gratitude for the genius who lit the torch which illuminates the road of my endeavours.”
I am not sure if Stekel means “bipolar” in the same way it is currently used as defined by the DSM-IV, or if there is something lost here in translation. Still, it reveals that S. was himself aware of his own potential towards extremes before 1915, the period that he allegedly treated the Rashab.
As for SBL, his grandfather was (Meir?) GURKOV, another Soviet mesiras nefesh yid. You should know this, since his son lives in Boston.
Why don’t you ask your buddies Kellers (their mother is SBL’s sister) how they are related to Slavin and then come back to me on this, OK? May be Gurkov too, but I don’t really care in the context of this conversation.
Dude, I just asked a Keller about this, & he has no freaking idea what you are talking about. As far as he knows, there is no connection between his family & Slavin. He did confirm that SBL’s grandfather was Meir Gurkov. You do not even need to ask the family; if you just open Meir Gurkov’s memoirs, “Sefer Zichronos,” you would see that the grandson, SBL, who prepared it for publication, mentions him as his grandfather in the preface.
But I suppose someone like you who did not grow up in the community has selective knowledge about the Lubavitch community. Stick with the Secular Soviets of your youth, sir.
Once again, like the Levertov debate, you can espouse misinformation with the conviction of a Pradva apparachnik. No one is perfect, Herr Ben, not even one whose last name suggests someone who carries the world on his shoulders.
But I do agree with you that this is all very tangential to the main issue here at hand, viz. the Rashab-Freud-Stekel triangle.