The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Thought Processes and Methods of Freudian Psychoanalysis

[ 1 ] My dear friends! I must assume that, in light of the negotiations currently underway, people may be less inclined at the moment to welcome a lecture that addresses the topic, which should be considered a continuation of the one presented yesterday. I will therefore deliver this lecture tomorrow for those who wish to attend, and today I would like to speak about something that, in one way or another, will be related to the matters that are—and must be—of immediate concern to everyone right now.^{1See the appendix.}

[ 2 ] First of all, I would like to raise the question in a very specific way: What are we actually dealing with in the Goesch-Sprengel case? How can we arrive at what I have spoken about frequently in my lectures over the past few weeks—namely, that it is important to find the correct perspective on a matter? So I would like to pose the question: How can one gradually arrive at the correct perspective on this case through a completely objective study of it?

[ 3 ] If one wishes to treat such a case objectively, one must, first, remove it from its personal context and, second, place it within a somewhat broader context. And if it then turns out—as I believe it will—that this broader context is precisely what is most important for us, insofar as we speak of ourselves as our movement, then it is our duty—I would even say, for our own instruction, for the sake of Spiritual Science itself—to study such a case. Now, the entire case does indeed fit into a broader context; to what extent this is true may become clear if one takes a closer look at the letter Dr. Goesch wrote on August 19, 1915, with regard to his main motives and his main arguments.

[ 4 ] Now, since you are facing important negotiations, I do not wish to detain you for too long and will begin by highlighting just a few key points. The first of these key points is the accusation of breaking promises. If you listened carefully to the letter, you will have noticed that the emphasis is not merely on the accusation of making and breaking promises, but that the main accusation is that I am actively pursuing a method—and proceeding in a systematic manner—of making promises to the members and then failing to keep them; and that when the members realize that the promises are not being kept, they are placed in a certain mental state that compels them to adopt a certain attitude toward the one who made and broke the promise, thereby creating an accumulation of forces which, as they build up in the soul, must gradually lead to the members’ mental degradation.

[ 5 ] This is the first hypothesis that is put forward. We are thus dealing with the claim that systematic attempts are being made to induce stupidity—that is, to cloud the minds of the members—and that the deliberate making and breaking of promises is a means of dampening the members’ normal state of consciousness, so that they are led into a kind of stupidity and dullness. This is the first point made in the letter.

[ 6 ] Secondly, it states that one of the methods used is: shaking hands, engaging in friendly conversation, and the like, in short, to establish a certain kind of contact with the members, which, in turn, through its particular nature and the influences it exerts on the members, is suited to evoke in their souls precisely what is intended and what is to be brought about through this contact, whether by shaking hands or through conversation.

[ 7 ] The third point to consider—and this is the central theme running throughout Dr. Goesch’s entire letter—is the nature of the relationship between Miss Sprengel and Dr. Goesch.

[ 8 ] These three points—which could be expanded upon—should be highlighted first.

[ 9 ] The primary question is: How does Dr. Goesch come to construct, based on the first two points, such a systematic theory about the way in which means are used to harm members in their state of consciousness? One must investigate this and seek to understand: Where does such a theory come from? And here, Dr. Goesch leads us to his years of immersion in so-called Freudian psychoanalytic theory. And when one studies this theory, one will notice that it is intimately connected with the entire nature of the pathological picture presented in the letter; that one must draw certain connections from this pathological picture—in relation to the first two points—to Dr. Goesch’s deep immersion in the Freudian psychoanalytic worldview.

[ 10 ] Of course, I am not in a position to give you a comprehensive overview of Freudian psychoanalytic theory in such a short time. I merely wish to elaborate on a few points that may help clarify the Goesch-Sprengel case. But I may say that I feel justified, in a certain sense, in speaking about psychoanalysis as well, since one of the medical scholars who was involved in its inception and foundation—but who later, after psychoanalysis had degenerated during Dr. Freud’s later years, abandoned psychoanalytic theory, was a friend of mine in earlier years.

[ 11 ] So please do not take what I am about to say as a complete characterization of Freudian psychoanalytic theory, but merely as a highlighting of a few points.

[ 12 ] First of all, the Freudian psychoanalyst assumes that, in addition to the conscious mind, there is also an unconscious mental life—that is, that besides the mental life of a person, which takes place consciously, there is also an unconscious mental life with content of which the person is not aware in ordinary consciousness. Now, an important part of psychoanalysis is the doctrine that certain experiences a person may have in the course of their life can make an impression on them, but in such a way that the impression disappears from consciousness into the subconscious and lives on there. Thus, according to the psychoanalyst’s view, what sinks into the unconscious need not fully enter present consciousness; for example, a person may have had some impression during childhood that does not fully enter their consciousness, yet had such a strong effect on their psyche that it sank into the unconscious and continues to exert its influence there. The effect remains. So one may find oneself faced with a situation—I will now, by omitting many intermediate steps, briefly outline the result of the whole matter—where the effect later led to a disturbed mental life, and one can say: There must be something like a “mental island” down in the subconscious, which existed as an experience in an earlier time, usually in youth, and which then continues to grow. If one investigates these matters in the psychoanalytic, catechizing manner described, one can bring such “islands of the soul,” which proliferate in the subconscious, up into consciousness. And by bringing this subconscious into the complex of consciousness—that is, by making it conscious—one heals the person in the area where they have such a psychological defect.

[ 13 ] At the outset of psychoanalytic endeavors, particularly under Dr. Breuer, the practice had been to conduct this interrogative analysis under hypnosis. However, this approach was later abandoned; the Freudian school now conducts this interrogative analysis while the patient is awake. There are thus proliferating islands of the psyche that are not present in consciousness.

[ 14 ] Now this psychoanalytic worldview has gradually spread to all possible aspects of life, and it attempts to provide explanations for them, especially with regard to human dreams. And here—as I have already explained once in a lecture to our friends somewhere—the Freudian school indulges in the most daring mental images. It claims that unfulfilled human desires play a predominant role in dreams. It is a very common, typical case that people often experience something in a dream precisely because it is an unfulfilled desire—a desire that cannot be fulfilled in waking life.

[ 15 ] Now it may happen—and this would be the significant point from the standpoint of psychoanalytic theorists—that such a desire, which exists in an unconscious “island of the soul,” is brought to the surface by a dream and may be a disguised form of an impulse that was already exerted on the person in early youth.

[ 16 ] You see, my dear friends, that there is something highly peculiar about these lines of thought, namely that they assume that a person—for example, a young man or a young woman—has had an experience that has sunk into the subconscious and then manifests itself as a clouding of consciousness, as a fantasy experience.

[ 17 ] Now consider this pattern: daily experiences are pushed down into the subconscious, where they continue to exist and lead to a weakened state of consciousness—then you have exactly the pattern that Dr. Goesch describes with regard to making promises and breaking them, their lingering effect in the subconscious, and that the intention is to effect something in the subconscious, much like the “islands” of Freudian psychoanalytic theory, and that this now operates in a sophisticated and systematic manner, producing a state of mental dullness—similar to that which dreams otherwise produce in the soul—through the effects of daily experiences that have sunk into the subconscious.

[ 18 ] A convoluted theory that, when one lives by it, triggers certain thought patterns that then permeate one’s entire way of thinking. This theory explains why, as you will see, such a daring idea could even occur to Dr. Goesch.

[ 19 ] I went on to say: The concept of touch plays a major role. My dear friends, I would now like to read to you a few passages from one of Prof. Sigmund Freud’s books, and I ask you to pay close attention to certain points. However, before I read these passages—which are taken from a book containing a collection of Freud’s essays from the journal *Imago*—I must first make a preliminary remark, as it relates to the Goesch-Sprengel case.

[ 20 ] Remember—those who have known Miss Sprengel for a long time will know this—that a major factor for her is the fact that she wants to protect her appearance from people who have an influence on her aura; she was absolutely horrified at the thought of shaking someone’s hand and the like. The mental image that shaking hands is a capital offense in our esoteric circles is one she formed long before Dr. Goesch was even here. To illustrate the point, I’ll describe an incident. I had some business to attend to in Dr. Schmiedel’s laboratory and ran into Miss Sprengel there. I shook her hand, and this prompted her to say: “It’s always like that with him; he does all sorts of things to you, then shakes your hand, and that makes you forget everything.”—There you have the seed of the theory about shaking hands.

[ 21 ] Yesterday, you were read an account of what became of this theory in Miss Sprengel—with her complex psychological makeup—with the help of Dr. Goesch: He introduced her to Freudian theories and was able to systematically connect the concepts to Freudian thought patterns. On page 27 of the aforementioned book by Freud, the following passage appears:

The main characteristic of the psychological constellation that has thus been established lies in what might be called the individual’s ambivalent behavior toward the object—or rather, a specific action directed at it. (To borrow an apt expression from Bleuler.) The individual wants to perform this action—the touch—again and again; he sees in it the highest pleasure, but he is not allowed to perform it, and he also abhors it. The conflict between these two currents cannot be resolved quickly because—we can only say—they are localized in the psyche in such a way that they cannot collide. The prohibition is consciously recognized, while the persistent desire for contact remains unconscious; the person is unaware of it. Were this psychological factor not present, such ambivalence could neither persist for so long nor lead to such consequences.”

[ 22 ] - There is a lot of talk here about how fear of physical contact plays a certain role in neurotics.—

“In the clinical history of the case, we have emphasized the imposition of the prohibition at such an early age as the decisive factor; for the subsequent development, this role falls to the mechanism of repression at this stage of development. As a result of the repression that has taken place—which is associated with forgetting (amnesia)—the motivation behind the prohibition that has come to consciousness remains unknown, and all attempts to intellectually deconstruct it are bound to fail, since they cannot find the point at which to make their attack. The prohibition owes its strength to its coercive nature—precisely to its relationship with its unconscious counterpart, the hidden, unchecked desire, that is, an inner necessity for which conscious insight is lacking. The transferability and reproducibility of the prohibition reflect a process that takes place in relation to unconscious pleasure and is particularly facilitated under the psychological conditions of the unconscious. Instinctual pleasure constantly shifts in order to evade the barrier it faces and seeks to acquire surrogates for the forbidden—substitute objects and substitute actions. For this reason, the prohibition also shifts and extends to the new targets of the frowned-upon impulse. The prohibition responds to every new advance of the repressed libido with a new intensification. The mutual inhibition of these two contending forces creates a need for relief, for a reduction in the prevailing tension, in which one may recognize the motivation behind compulsive acts. In neurosis, these are clear compromise actions: on the one hand, expressions of remorse, efforts at atonement, and the like; on the other hand, however, they are simultaneously substitute actions that compensate for the drive toward the forbidden. It is a law of neurotic illness that these compulsive acts increasingly serve the drive and come ever closer to the originally forbidden act.”

[ 23 ] Consider this entire process of obsessive thinking surrounding the fear of physical contact, and imagine that Miss Sprengel, as such an object of fear of being touched, had been brought before a psychoanalyst, and that he had carried out his usual psychoanalytic practice, had questioned her about her fear of being touched, and had sought to identify the underlying cause that led to her fear of being touched.

[ 24 ] A third point I wanted to highlight is the relationship between Miss Sprengel and Mr. Goesch. According to psychoanalytic theory, this relationship would naturally be characterized by masked erotic mental images. I mean this entirely objectively. (...) ^{1In the following remarks, the connection between the Goesch-Sprengel case and psychoanalysis was evidently demonstrated. However, the stenographer was only able to record the words: “Now the question is, how is a connection established … when such masked drives are present … precisely between two personalities of this kind …”}

[ 25 ] My dear friends, we need to delve a little deeper into the overall structure of the psychoanalytic worldview. According to the analysis I have just presented to you, certain “islands of the soul” are brought up from the unconscious, and it is assumed that all these “islands of the soul” are, to a far greater extent, of a sexual nature, so that the psychoanalyst’s task consists in identifying experiences that occurred during the early stages of life and then sank into the unconscious, and in bringing them back to the surface for the purpose of healing. According to Freudian theory, healing is achieved precisely by bringing hidden sexual complexes from the subconscious depths of the psyche into consciousness. The extent to which this method has been successful in healing patients is discussed at length in the relevant books.

[ 26 ] You can see how the fundamental tone of the entire psychoanalytic way of thinking is, in many ways, one permeated by psychic sexuality. This goes so far, my dear friends, that psychoanalysis is applied to all manner of other phenomena in life. It goes so far that, for example, mythology and folklore are interpreted by Freud’s followers—and by Freud himself—in a psychoanalytic sense such that they always—and this is by far the most common case—infer hidden psychological sexuality. For example, they want to explain the Oedipus myth, the Oedipus complex. In short, the plot of the Oedipus myth is that Oedipus is led to kill his father and marry his mother. Now the psychoanalyst asks: What is the basis for something like this?—And he says: Such things are always based on sexual complexes repressed into the unconscious mind, which usually involve a sexual experience that took place in very early childhood. And since the child’s relationship with the father and the mother is already a sexual one from birth—this is an established Freudian view—the child, if he is a boy, is unconsciously in love with his mother and therefore unconsciously, subconsciously, jealous of the father.

[ 27 ] You see, my dear friends, this is where the theory begins to become something that might lead one to say that these psychoanalysts, if they believe in their theory, should above all apply it to themselves; they should apply it to the fact that their fate and their view of it stem from having experienced too many sexual processes in childhood that were repressed into the unconscious. This theory must, above all, be applied to Freud and his followers themselves.

[ 28 ] The origin of something like the Oedipus myth is thus, as mentioned, attributed to the fact that, fundamentally, most boys—beginning at birth—have an illicit relationship with their mother and are therefore jealous of their father. The father becomes her enemy, and the result is that, in the boys’ murky imagination, the father continues to loom as an enemy in some way. But because reason later dictates that one must not have a relationship with one’s mother, this relationship is repressed into the unconscious. The boy then goes through life carrying something that never enters his consciousness, but which is akin to a forbidden relationship with his mother and a conflictual relationship with his father, because he perceives him as a rival.

[ 29 ] According to psychoanalytic theory, one must look for psychological complexes in disturbed minds, and then, once they are brought into consciousness, one will find that healing can occur. It is a pity that I cannot elaborate further, but I will try to explain them as precisely as possible. In the book I just mentioned, for example, you will find the following on page 16:

“In the preceding discussion, we have had little opportunity to show that the facts of ethnic psychology can be viewed in a new light through the application of psychoanalytic insights, for the aversion to incest among primitive peoples has long been recognized as such and requires no further interpretation.”

[ 30 ] This essay explains why Wilde enforces the prohibition against marriage to one’s mother and sister so strictly, and why illicit relationships with one’s mother and sister are punished. “Incest” is love for blood relatives, and one of the first essays in this book is titled “The Aversion to Incest.” This aversion is justified on the grounds that an incestuous tendency actually exists—particularly in every male individual—because a certain forbidden relationship with the mother is present.

“What we can add in her defense is the observation that it is an exquisitely childish trait

[ 31 ] —that is, the savage retains it throughout his life, whereas in children it is repressed into the subconscious—

and a striking correspondence with the inner life of the neurotic. Psychoanalysis has taught us that a boy’s first choice of a sexual object is an incestuous one, directed toward the forbidden objects—the mother and sister—and has also taught us the ways in which the adolescent frees himself from the attraction of incest. The neurotic, however, typically represents a degree of psychological infantilism; he has either been unable to free himself from the childlike stages of psychosexual development, or he has regressed to them. (Developmental arrest and regression.) In his unconscious mental life, therefore, the incestuous fixations of the libido still play—or have returned to play—a central role. We have come to regard the relationship with the parents, dominated by incestuous desire, as the core complex of neurosis.

[ 32 ] —According to psychoanalytic theory, the core of neurosis is the boy’s forbidden sexual attraction to his mother and sister.—

The revelation of this significance of incest for neurosis naturally meets with the most widespread disbelief on the part of adults and “normal” people; the same rejection will also be directed, for example, at the works of Otto Rank, which demonstrate to an ever-greater extent just how central the theme of incest is to poetic interest and how it provides the material for countless variations and distortions in poetry. We are compelled to believe that such rejection is, above all, a product of humanity’s deep aversion to its former incestuous desires, which have since been repressed. It is therefore not unimportant for us to be able to demonstrate, using primitive peoples as an example, that they still perceive man’s incestuous desires—which are destined to be repressed into the unconscious—as threatening and consider them worthy of the most severe defensive measures.”

[ 33 ] Starting from this, my dear friends, an atmosphere of sexual mental images spreads throughout the entire field of psychoanalysis. They live and breathe, as it were, in sexual mental images. Consequently, nothing has contributed more than psychoanalysis to the fact that the most unbelievable mockery of what is natural in human life is truly creeping into life little by little—I would say, without people even noticing. And I must say, I can deeply sympathize with an elderly gentleman who, throughout his life, strove to contribute to bringing morality into medicine—Moritz Benedikt—when he says: “If one looks around, one can see that 30 years ago, we doctors knew less about certain sexual abnormalities than today’s eighteen-year-old boarding school girls do.” One can empathize with this man, for it is the truth. I would like to mention this in particular because it is extraordinarily important to view certain aspects of a child’s life in a natural way and not to immediately interpret them through the lens of sexuality.

[ 34 ] In children, what is today—based on convoluted theories—somehow regarded as a sexual aberration has long been considered an innocent act. And in most cases, one need go no further than to view these things as nothing more than childish mischief. A few light slaps on a certain part of the body are sufficient as a remedy. The worst remedy, however, is to talk a lot about these things—or even to talk at length with the children themselves and teach them all sorts of theories. It is difficult, even with adults, to speak quite clearly about these matters. But for someone who frequently offers advice on a wide variety of topics, it unfortunately often happens that parents come forward with complaints—sometimes quite foolish ones—including the complaint that children are suffering from sexual deviance. And what was the basis for this? The only reason was that the child was scratching itself. There was no other reason than that the child was scratching itself. And just as scratching one’s arm is not a sexual act, neither is scratching any other part of the body a sexual act. Dr. Freud, however, advocates the idea that every scratch, every touch—even the touch of the mouth to a pacifier—is a sexual act. Dr. Freud casts an aura of sexuality over the entire human life. It would truly be beneficial to examine these matters a little more closely in order to understand the excesses of materialistic science—that is, to engage somewhat with what is called Freudian psychoanalysis. Thus, everything is drawn into this atmosphere and viewed, as it were, sub specie of these things.

[ 35 ] A Hungarian psychoanalyst writes in a book cited by Dr. Freud about a five-year-old boy named Arpad; according to this Hungarian psychoanalyst, Ferenczi, there was no doubt as to the source of the boy’s interest in the goings-on in the chicken coop: “The lively sexual interaction between the rooster and the hen, the laying of eggs, and the hatching of the young ‘brood’ satisfied his sexual curiosity, which was actually directed toward human family life. He had modeled his object desires on the life of the chickens, as when he once told his neighbor: ‘I’m going to marry you and your sister and my three cousins and the cook—no, instead of the cook, I’d rather marry my mother.’

[ 36 ] One would rather long for the days when one could hear such things from children without having to resort to such convoluted sexual theories. I would like, my dear friends, merely to touch on this topic, but in the near future we will be able to discuss this very point in order to reassure fathers and mothers. For, quite unnoticed, Freudian theory is spreading rapidly—and without people always realizing it—though it is, in fact, merely a symptom of the fact that such a drive is sweeping through the world. When parents complain that their four- to five-year-old sons or daughters are suffering from sexual deviations, the answer is usually: The deviations consist mainly in the way you think about the situation—that is usually the greatest deviation.

[ 37 ] There you have the atmosphere in which Freudian psychoanalysis splashes about. I am, of course, aware that Freudians may object to this when such matters are summarized in this way. But the expression is entirely justified: in these psychosexual matters, the whole of psychoanalysis is merely babbling—indeed, it is practically dripping with them, as is evident in its treatises.

[ 38 ] But just imagine for a moment, my dear friends, that the assumption that there are psychosexual islands in the human subconscious actually holds true for someone. What might happen then? It might happen that the Freudian theorist in question takes the person—in whom he assumes this to be the case—under his wing, interrogates him, and thereby adds a new chapter or a new case to Freudian psychoanalytic theory. In the case we are discussing, it could have happened that Dr. Goesch might have said to himself, “I’ll interrogate him one of these days; then I’ll find things in these psychosexual islands that will help me substantiate Freudian theories.”—But that would have required something that one could only describe by saying: Dr. Goesch’s character should have been stronger. Instead, it succumbed to a certain kind of relationship with his newly chosen girlfriend, and the material at hand is the most excellent for describing the entire relationship. Whoever uses this material correctly will find the opportunity to describe the entire relationship in the most excellent manner, with objective clinical precision. And since in many cases it does not matter so much whether one is dealing with an important or an unimportant case, but rather what one can learn from the case, I must say that ultimately the case may lead to a line of reasoning similar to that which I presented in 1900 in an essay in the *Wiener klinische Rundschau* on “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as a Psychopathological Problem.” For, alongside all that Nietzsche’s genius has given to the world, one must also feel an obligation to show how the world takes the wrong approach to Friedrich Nietzsche when it fails to take his psychopathological aspects into account. It is important for our social life that the psychopathological does not get out of hand, that it be eradicated from people’s minds and viewed in the proper light, and that the psychopath not be regarded as a being of a higher order. Therefore, it is important to properly examine such cases and assess, from the correct standpoint, what they actually entail.

[ 39 ] It is already too late for me to describe how the storm gradually built up. When I was in Vienna in May of this year, in Austria, one of our members wrote me a letter—which I had to tear up upon my return here, since letters cannot be carried across the border at present—in which, however, roughly the same accusations were made, also drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis, just as they had emerged in Dr. Goesch’s work under the influence of Miss Sprengel. The accusations in that letter came from the same quarter; it is, so to speak, the same wind. Some of the sentences—if I could read them to you—would even correspond remarkably well with what Miss Sprengel has instilled in Dr. Goesch.

[ 40 ] But what exactly is at issue in the Goesch-Sprengel case? It is not merely that Dr. Goesch was not the right psychoanalyst, for that would have required him to maintain an objective relationship—such as that of a doctor to a patient—with Miss Sprengel. However, she had too overwhelming an effect on him, and as a result, it was not only Mr. Goesch’s conscious mind that became the examiner. According to Freudian theory, everything that lived in the soul of his girlfriend, the “keeper of the seal,” thus came to the surface. But because it entered the unconscious, it was concealed by an entire theory, which is presented in Dr. Goesch’s letter.

[ 41 ] The Goesch-Sprengel case—which arose from one of the greatest errors stemming from one of the worst materialist theories of our time—can only be understood by recognizing that both individuals cast a mystical veil over their all-too-human relationships, which is essentially—and this aspect is amply attested to by excellent documents— —is essentially the cloaking of a human, all-too-human relationship with Freudian-style psychoanalytic theories.

[ 42 ] When we strive to help such people—who come to us with such complex psychological makeup—then, my dear friends, it very often happens that these people, who were at first quite enthusiastic followers, later turn their support into hostility. This is actually something that can be explained entirely in psychoanalytic terms. But it is urgently necessary for us to care for the world. For just as new hostilities can arise every day from this side—from the psychoanalytic current inundated with sexual mental images—so, too, can hostility come our way from all manner of other aberrations in an age in which the human—all-too-human—has run itself into a dead end.

[ 43 ] As you can see, here is another example of just how necessary it is for us to study such cases, which—since our society itself represents a spiritual movement—must be of great interest to us.

[ 44 ] I could go on speaking for a long time, but I do not want to—and cannot—do so today, because you have negotiations to attend to. But I wanted to hint at the first tentative steps along the path we must take if we are to see where the dangers to our movement lie, and how urgently necessary it is that we—each as much as we can—work to engage with the world, so that the outside world knows it is not dealing with timid rabbits, but with people who know how to stand their ground—and, forgive me—how to stand their ground as women as well. When things arise that play out behind a mask, as is the case here in this letter, it is our duty to tear that mask away and reveal where the origins lie. They lie much deeper than one usually looks; they lie in that materialistic trend of our time, which has not only become a scientific trend but also poisons our entire lives—and our movement actually exists to combat it. To combat it, however, we must also prepare ourselves and not drift along in such a way that we absorb only the most essential concepts, but rather open our eyes and see what is going on in the world, what the people who come to us have learned in the world, and what they bring with them when they come to us.