F.-Declercq-Freuds-Scientism-and-its-Impact-on

FREUD'S SCIENTISM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE ANALYSIS OF
THE WOLF-MAN*
Frédéric Declercq
The scientific-political dimension of the case of the Wolf-man
Right from the start, the Wolf-man's analysis has a political
dimension. In Freud's eyes, the primary significance of this analysis, is
that it proves the importance of infantile sexuality in the aetiology of
neurosis, - something which is denied by Jung and Adler.
It [The case study of the Wolf-man] shows the
predominant part that is played in the formation of neuroses
by those libidinal motive forces which are so eagerly
disavowed [by Jung], and reveals the absence of any
aspirations towards remote cultural aims [Adler], of which
the child still knows nothing, and which cannot therefore be
of any significance for him.1
According to Adler, neurosis has nothing to do with infantile sexuality but
with the failure of one's subjective project due to cultural factors.
So the clinical aspect is not the only one at play in the analysis of
the Wolf-man. There's a scientific issue too. And indeed Freud appears to
be driven by a scientific passion to know. He wants to know with
certainty whether the Wolf-man did or did not dream the wolf dream
when he was a child (for Jung's opinion was that it was dreamt in
adulthood and projected back into infancy). Related to that, he also wants
Talk given to the 9 th annual congress of APPI, Saturday 16th November 2002.
1 S. Freud. From the History of an Infantile Neurosis [the Wolf-man], S.E.XVII, London,
H ogarth Press, 1978, p. 9.
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to know with certainty whether the dream reflected the observation of the
coitus of his parents. According to Lacan, it is precisely Freud's scientific
'urge' that caused the so-called paranoid disturbance of the Wolf-man:
We feel that throughout this analysis, this real brings with it
the subject, almost by force, so directing the research that,
after all, we can today ask ourselves whether this fever, this
presence, this desire of Freud is not that which, in his
patient, might have conditioned the belated accident of his
psychosis.2
Thanks to the documents assembled by Muriel Gardiner, we know the
dates check out. The Wolf-man's disturbances coincide with the period
when Freud sends him a letter asking him once again to certify the
authenticity of the dream, which the Wolf-man will in fact do. However,
it appears to the Wolf-man himself that his disturbances start right after he
responded to Freud. He asks himself the question whether these
disturbances could have any relation to Freud's query about the Wolfdream.3 Similarly, here I will argue that Freud's desire to know created an
acting-out conjuncture. Hence I will also argue that the Wolf-man's
psychotic-like disturbance in fact corresponds with an 'acting out'.
2 J. Lacan. The Seminar, Book XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, London,
Vintage, 1998. p. 54.
3 II est intéressant de noter que ma lettre [l'homme aux loups] au professeur Freud est datée du 6
juin 1926. En juin de cette année commença ma maladie causée par mon nez, dénommée
'paranoïa' à cause de laquelle je fus en traitement chez le docteur Mack. Ce traitement doit
commencer quelques jours après la rédaction de ma lettre au professeur Freud, car ma femme et
moi partîmes en vacances le premier juillet 1926, et je me trouvais déjà dans un indescriptible état
de désespoir. Si donc j'avais tardé encore quelques jours à répondre aux questions du professeur
Freud, je me serais trouvé dans un état de d'esprit qui m'aurait empêché probablement de lui
écrire quoi que ce soit d'utilisable. Ou bien le début de la 'paranoïa' se trouve-t-elle de quelque
manière en relation avec les questions du professeur Freud?! Ce qui me frappe encore dans ma
lettre à celui-ci, c'est qu'il y soit tellement question de castration. Rien d'étonnant que ma lettre
fût écrite la 'veille' de la 'paranoïa'. In M. Gardiner, 'L'homme aux loups par ses analystes et par
lui-même, textes réunis et présentés par M. Gardiner', Paris, Gallimard, 1981.p. 282.
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Freud's scientific passion to know
The discussion about this analysis revolves around the wolf dream
and its hypothetical relation to the primal scene. The question is whether
the primal scene was a fantasy or a real scene that the Wolf-man observed.
Freud himself produced two successive answers to this question:
- in a first moment (between 1910 and 1915), Freud is convinced the
primal scene really happened.
- Later, after 1915, he'll change his mind and consider it a fantasy.
Within this context, it is his first thesis that is important because it is
during this period that the analysis of the Wolf-man took place. During
the period of the Wolf-man's analysis, Freud is convinced the primal scene
really happened and that it lies at the base of the wolf dream. Let us
immediately remark that the Wolf-man himself was not so sure. As he'll
tell Karin Obholzer many years after his analysis, he followed Freud in his
conviction at the time and waited for the memory of the primal scene to
come. However, it never did.4 Neither was the construction confirmed by
the production of new memories completing and extending it. Within the
cure of the Wolf-man, the construction wasn't a preliminary labour (sic.)
as, at least according to Freud, it should be, but rather an endpoint.5 So
with his construction of the primal scene, Freud isn't very Freudian. In his
obstinate conviction that the scene really happened and in his urge to
prove it, Freud seems to leave his analytic position. And indeed,
throughout his analysis, the Wolf-man said he had the continual feeling
that Freud was searching for something but didn't find what he was
4 'J'ai toujours pensé que le souvenir viendrait. Mais il n'est pas venu'. In K. Obholzer,
'Entretiens avec l'homme aux loups', Paris, Gallimard, 1981. p. 70. [This work appears in
English as K. Obholzer. The Wolf-man: Sixty Years Later. Conversations with Freud's
contoversial patient. Trans. Michael Shaw, New York, Continuum, 1982. (Ed)]
5 S. Freud. Constructions in analysis. S. E. X Xm , London, Hogarth Press, 1978, pp. 256-269.
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looking for.6 And if the Wolf-man found the theory of the primal scene
questionable from the beginning, he never doubted Freud's intimate
conviction about it, though. Throughout his analysis, he will feel Freud's
wanting to know weighing upon him constantly. He felt it so much so
that he didn't feel like a patient anymore but rather 'a fellow worker, the
younger assistant of the elder experienced scientist on his way to discover
a new continent'.7 Obviously, Freud's scientific passion to know must
have been very pregnant indeed.
Let us note in passing here that if Freud left his analytical position,
the International Psychoanalytical Association contributed to making the
Wolf-man the symptom of psychoanalysis by making him its showpiece.
Indeed the Wolf-man received nothing less than a month's salary from the
IPA. Besides this, he made money from the royalties of the publications of
his 'souvenirs', as well as from his paintings, which found buyers in
amongst the analytic crowd. Among these paintings were copies of the
drawing of the wolves as published in Freud's case-study. Of course, all
of the analyses he did after Freud, - and there were many, - were
conducted 'on the house' too. Judging from the rather conflicting nature
of this position, he probably was a symptom of analysis in the strict
clinical sense, by which is meant, a compromise formation between two
opposing tendencies. On the one hand, he complained of being a sort of
circus horse of the IPA. On the other hand, he signed his correspondence
and answered the phone with the title 'The Wolf-man' instead of his own
name, Sergei Pankejev. He insisted on maintaining his anonymity, while
6 'J'ai toujours raconté quelque chose. Mais justement il [Freud] ne trouvait pas ce qu'il voulait
trouver - est-ce que je sais quoi? Voyez-vous, toutes ces constructions il faut quand-même les
mettre en doute'. In: K. ObhoLzer 'Entretiens avec l'homme aux loups', ibid, p. 74.
7 'Ce que je puis dire, c'est qu'étant en analyse chez Freud, j'avais moins le sentiment d'être un
patient, que plutôt - pourrait-on presque dire - un collaborateur, le camarade plus jeune d'un
chercheur expérimenté, qui s'est mis en route pour explorer une terre nouvellement découverte'.
In, M. Gardiner 'L'homme aux loups par ses analystes et par lui-même, textes réunis et
présentés par M. Gardiner, op.cit., p. 158.
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at the same time he always agreed to receive one or another analyst who
was probably just coming to admire the holy relic with his own eyes.8
The Wolf-man's paranoid hypochondriacal 'idée fixe': an acting-out ?
Let's now turn our attention to the Wolf-man's post analytical
pathology.
As mentioned, the Wolf-man develops a paranoid-like
disturbance directly after receiving Freud's letter. The disturbance
consisted of a hypochondriacal 'idée fixe' about his nose, namely that he,
the Wolf-man, had been the victim of Professor X - Vienna's most eminent
dermatologist. According to the Wolf-man, Professor X's treatment had
damaged his nose. There would be a scar or a little cavity in his nose. In
any case the shape of his nose was now damaged irreversibly. Ruth MacBrunswick - his analyst at that moment - writes that she didn't notice
anything wrong with his nose. She can see no scar or little hollow.
Nevertheless, the Wolf-man is haunted by the following thought: 'How
could Professor X, Vienna's most eminent dermatologist, have done such
irreparable harm'?9
It was on the basis of this accusatory 'idée fixe' [Uberwertige Idee] that
Mac-Brunswick and others reached their diagnoses of paranoia.
Structurally speaking, such a diagnosis is no longer sustainable, for we
now know that there are no transitions possible between nosological
structures.
See Lacan's 'nobody goes mad through wanting so'.10
8 M. Gardiner, op.cit., p. 376 ; K. Obholzer. op.cit., p. 175.
9 'Il [l'homme aux loups] souffrait d'une idée fixe hypocondriaque. Il aurait - se plaignait-il été la victime d'un dommage causé à son nez par Velectrolyse, cette méthode ayant été employée
pour traiter l'obstruction des glandes sébacées de son nez. D'après lui, le dommage consistait en
une cicatrice, en un trou ou un petit fossé dans le tissu cicatriciel, suivant les moments. La ligne
de son nez était à jamais détruite. ]e dirais sans tarder qu'il n'y avait rien de visible sur le nez
du patient, nez petit, retroussé et typiquement russe. Comment le professeur X, le plus éminent
dermatologiste de Vienne, avait-il pu se rendre coupable d'un dommage aussi irréparable.' In:
M. Gardiner, op.cit. p. 269.
1(1 J. Lacan. The Seminar, Book III, The Psychoses. New York, W.W. Norton, 1993, p. 15. See
also J. C. Maleval. A propos de la symptomatologie 'limite' de l'Homme aux loups in 'Etudes
psychothérapiques' 38, 4, 1979, pp. 261-271; J.C. Maleval, Du rejet de la castration chez
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According to Serge André, the pathology that the Wolf-man manifests
would rather correspond to an acting-out.11
So what is an acting-out? First, it refers to acts that are related to
the analytic sessions. If acting out is an act committed outside the session,
it is nevertheless closely related to it. More specifically, the acting out is a
response to an inadequate intervention on the part of the analyst. Hence
the 'acting out' is always addressed to someone in particular, in this case
the analyst. That's a first difference with the symptom, which is addressed
to no one in particular but to the Other. A second difference from the
symptom is its relation to the subject. If a subject in some sense knows
that he's implicated in his symptom, he doesn't feel that way at all in
relation to his acting-out. The subject has a kind of heterogeneous relation
to his own 'acting out'. Incidentally, it is this heterogeneous relation that
makes the interpretation of an acting-out so difficult. It also explains why
the acting-out frequently has something paranoid about it. In this case the
Wolf-man consults a whole army of dermatologists, goes back, complains,
looks for yet another one, asks the dentist's opinion and comes to the
conclusion that they all want to do him harm.
Let us now turn back to the acting out in relation to an inadequate
intervention by the analyst. What kind of inadequate intervention are we
talking about? Understood in Lacanian terms, an acting-out conjunction is
created whenever the gap of the Real is about to be absorbed by the
Symbolic. Put differently, acting out can be considered as a protest by the
unconscious against the symbolisation of the Real. Lacan shed light on
these axioms by translating them into his concepts of demand and desire.
When conceptualising them, Lacan emphasises that it is not the demand's
aim to be exhausted. On the contrary, even. When the demand is
exhausted, the desire that runs through it is annihilated. And it is in this
way that an acting-out conjuncture gets installed. Lacan thus stresses that
the demand's goal is not to be exhausted, but recognized. I tried to make
l'homme aux loups in 'Actes de l'E.C.F.' 2,1981, pp. 29-39. J. C. Maleval Folies hystériques et
psychoses dissociatives, Payot, Paris, 1981.
11 S. André. R.S.I., 1981-1982, unpublished seminar.
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this intelligible to myself by thinking of the well known situation of
children accompanying their parents to the store, demanding 'can I get
this' or 'can I get that?' etc. I think that in some cases children do not
necessarily want or even know what they ask for. Maybe that's why they
immediately break the object attained or else rapidly lose interest when
they get it. Couldn't it be that by losing interest or breaking it, they send a
message to their parents telling them that there's in fact a desire running
under this demand. A desire that isn't synonymous with the demand.
Within this context, the relation of the demand to the desire is the same as
the relation between signifier and signified. The elements above the
fraction bar could not be reduced to the ones beneath.
D
S
d
s
Just as the signifier must be articulated in relation to other signifiers, in the
same way the demand should be stimulated to articulate itself, up to the
point that the desire that runs through the metonymic movement of the
demand can reveal and realise itself. Let us return to the child's demand.
Imagine the parent doesn't answer the demand by giving or refusing what
the child asks for, but instead invites the child to talk about what he
demands: why does it interest you; what do you intend to do with it; why
do you like this instead of that? When approached in that manner, it is
not the demand by itself that is appealed to any more, but the desire
underlying it.
Let us now apply this dynamic between demand and desire to the
analytical situation taking Ernst Kris's case of the plagiarizer. 12 As we
know, Kris's analysand is an academic who asks himself whether he is a
plagiarizer or not. Taking his demand as the direct expression of his
desire, Kris tells him to bring some of his writings in order to check if he is
12 J. Lacan. The Seminar, Book I, Freud's Papers on Technique, New York, Cambridge
University Press, 1988. pp. 59-61.
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indeed plagiarizing. Lacan teaches us that by doing this, by reducing his
demand to his presumed desire, Kris creates an acting-out conjuncture.
Indeed, in the next session Kris's analysand says that he sought out a place
where he could find the dish he's particularly fond of, fresh brains'. Our
hypothesis would be here that Freud maybe did the same with the Wolfman. By reducing the signifiers of the wolf dream to a presumed signified
- the primal scene - he smothered the Wolf-man's desire. Most likely, that
is the damage that Freud did to him. That the damage done by the socalled professor X was in fact referring to that performed by professor
Freud, is clear. It was laid bare by the analysis with Mac-Brunswick and
fully acknowledged by the Wolf-man. However, we're still not sure about
the nature of that damage. We know the Wolf-man will remain convinced
to the very end that Freud is responsible for the loss of his fortune and that
would be the damage Freud would have done to him. However, MackBrunswick doesn't find that to be at the root of his acting out.
Furthermore, this allegation is most probably untrue. We know Freud did
advise the Wolf-man not to go back to Russia when the revolution broke
out. From then on the Wolf-man was always convinced that he shouldn't
have listened to Freud. He was always sure he could have saved his
fortune by going back to Russia. Mack-Brunswick tells us that the Wolfman's mother and her lawyers tried to save it but were unable to. Not
only would the Wolf-man probably have done no better, he would
moreover have risked his life going back, considering how his father had
held an important political position under the Tsar.
Now, as for what exactly Mack-Brunswick found at the root of the
Wolf-man's 'idée-fixe' is hard to tell for she explains it in terms of the nose
symbolizing the penis; the scar symbolizing castration etc. I don't find
that explanation to be either very clear or very convincing. Perhaps there
might be another explanation. Maybe it would be worth considering the
Wolf-man's preoccupation with his damaged nose from another, different
perspective, a perspective opened by Lacan with his addition of two other
drive objects: the scopophilic and the invocative one. Could it be possible
that the nose is only an accessory and that the factor that would really be
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at stake would be the gaze? Could it then be that the damage Freud did
would come down to having overlooked the libidinal dynamics of the
gaze? Let's start with the first question. Always carrying a small mirror,
getting on everybody's nerves, Mac-Brunswick relates that the Wolf-man
can't stop looking at his nose. Never does the Wolf-man either touch the
scar or claim to be feeling it. Neither does he experience any negative
functional consequences of the cavity. 13 Apparently the damage is
something to be seen. The scar, or cavity, or ruined shape of the nose
evokes the look. What is to be seen is not the scar or the cavity, of course.
Moreover, there isn't even one. According to Lacan, what is to be seen
and what the Wolf-man desperately tries to see is his very own gaze.
Also, what would ultimately be at the heart of wolf-dream wouldn't be a
presumed coitus between the parents, but the wolf-man's own gaze: 'It's
not only that the subject is fascinated by the sight of these wolves (...). It is
13 'Il négligeait sa vie et son travail quotidien, absorbé qu'il était, à l'exclusion de tout autre chose,
par l'état de son nez. Dans la rue, il se regardait dans toutes les devantures; il avait un petit
miroir de poche qu'il sortait pour s'y regarder toutes les cinq minutes. (...) Sa vie était concentrée
dans le petit miroir qu'il portait dans sa poche et son sort dépendait de ce que celui-ci révélait ou
de ce qu'il allait lui découvrir. La servante qui lui ouvrait la porte de mon appartement avait peur
de lui parce que, disait-elle, il courait tel un fou au long miroir se trouvant dans le vestibule peu
éclairé.' (...) 'Il rentra chez lui, s'étendit pour se reposer un peu, et se passa involontairement la
main sur le nez. En sentant le petit bouton dur sous la peau, il l'arracha. Alors il alla à une glace
et regarda son nez. A la place du petit bouton il y avait un trou profond. De ce moment, sa
préoccupation dominante fu t celle ci: le trou se comblerait-il? Et quand? Il était maintenant
contraint de regarder toutes les cinq minutes dans son miroir de poche, sans doute pour observer
les progrès de la cicatrisation. Néanmoins, le trou ne se combla pas entièrement et cette faillite
empoisonnait sa vie. Il n'en continuait pas moins de se regarder dans son miroir, espérant contre
toute attente que, d'ici quelques mois, tout serait réparé. Car il ne pouvait à présent prendre
plaisir à rien et il commença à sentir que tout le monde regardait le trou sur son nez.' (...) ... il
cherchait ou regardait les petites cicatrices sur son nez plus qu'il n'était nécessaire'. (Gardiner,
1981, p. 281). 'Il ne lui restait donc qu'une seule activité possible, quelque dénuée de consolation
qu'elle fû t : se regarder sans cesse dans son miroir de poche, afin d'établir avec exactitude le degré
de sa mutilation. Il ne pouvait se séparer en seul instant de son petit miroir'. M. Gardiner,
L'homme aux loups par ses analystes et par lui-même, textes réunis et présentés par M.
Gardiner, op.cit., 1981, pp. 270, 275,283.
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that their fascinated gaze is the subject himself'.14 Hence, with his belief in
an observed parental intercourse as the obligatory referent of the dream,
Freud might have shortcut the Wolf-man's scopophilic desire and
jouissance. Apparently, and in spite of the imaginary interpretations
(nose=penis; scar = castration), Mack-Brunswick did not. It seems like his
analysis with her opened the way of the sublimation of the Wolf-man's
scopophilic desire and jouissance through his passion of painting.15
Conclusion
Both Freud and Lacan always insisted on maintaining the link
between psychoanalysis and science. However, the position that the
analyst takes in the cure cannot be that of a scientific researcher. The
analyst is not so much a researcher but someone who causes the
analysand's desire to know. As far as I can see, this meets with Lacan's
positioning of the analyst as an object a. This formula of the analyst as an
object a has many meanings and many implications, but I think one of
them is that the analyst's task is not to search for knowledge but to
incarnate a lack of knowledge instead. In doing this, the analysand is
invited to fill this lack with his unconscious knowledge. In other terms,
the analyst's position should be one that invites the subject to produce his
unconscious knowledge. I think that is the reason why Lacan could say
that one of the analyst's tasks just comes down to 'making waves'
[produire des vagues'], thereby pushing the analysand to elaborate.16
As for the scientific position stricto sensu, I think the analyst could
only be a scientist outside the cure. And that might hook up with Lacan's
invention of the so-called 'passe'. As we know Lacan conceived the 'passe'
14 J. Lacan. The Seminar, Book XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, op. cit.,
p. 251.
15 M. Gardiner. L'homme aux loups par ses analystes et par lui-même, textes réunis et
présentés par M. Gardiner, p. 294
16 'L'interprétation analytique n'est pas faite pour être comprise; elle est faite pour
produire des vagues'. J. Lacan, Conférences et entretiens dans des universités nord-américaines,
Yale University, 2 4 / 1 1 / 1975, Scilicet 6/7 , Paris, du Seuil, p. 35.
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in order to check whether an analysis had led to what Lacan
conceptualised as the analytic desire [désir de l'analyste] and the
metamorphosis of the subject it entails.17 However, there's another side to
the 'passe', namely a scientific one. Indeed, the cartel of the 'passe' doesn't
only have to estimate whether an analysand led its analysis to its end. Its
task consists in formalising and theorising the testimonies of the
analysands as well, in order to make psychoanalytic knowledge
transmissible in a scientific way instead of via initiation. Now, the point
that interests us here is that with his conceiving of the 'passe', Lacan's
standpoint was that the theorising should be done outside the cure and
should not be left to the care of the analyst of the analysand, but to
external analysts.
Address fo r correspondence:
Department of Psychoanalysis
Henri Dunantlaan 2
University of Ghent
Ghent B9000
Belgium
17 The term metamorphosis ['métamorphose du sujet') is Lacan's.
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