The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in Poland Before the First World War

So far, the origins of Polish psychoanalysis have remained in historical obscurity. Today few people remember that at the start of the twentieth century psychoanalysis sparked a debate and divided physicians, psychologists and pedagogues into its followers and opponents in partitioned Poland. The debate about psychoanalysis played out with the most dynamism in the scientific community of Polish neurologists and psychiatrists, where most of the first Polish psychoanalysts were based: Ludwig Jekels, Stefan Borowiecki, Jan Nelken, Herman Nunberg and Karol de Beaurain. Their efforts to popularize psychoanalytic therapy resulted in the entire scientific session being devoted to psychoanalysis at the Second Congress of Neurologists, Psychiatrists and Psychologists in Krakow in 1912. This paper illustrates the profiles of individuals who were involved in the popularization of Polish psychoanalytic thought and demonstrates a variety of reactions provoked by psychoanalytic ideas in scientific circles. It also sets out to piece together the development of Polish psychoanalysis as a whole before the First World War, suggesting that this first wave of interest might in some ways amount to a historically overlooked pre-war Polish school.

From Metapsychology to Magnetic Gnosis: An Esoteric Context for Interpreting Traumatic Modes of Transcendence in Sándor Ferenczi's Clinical Diary and Elizabeth Severn's The Discovery of the Self

It has been argued that the essential themes in Sándor Ferenczi's Clinical Diary (1932) centre around three major axes (theoretical, technical and personal). This paper proposes a fourth: namely, an occult or esoteric axis. To make the case for its presence in the Clinical Diary, the article provides a brief introduction to the academic study of Western esotericism in order to more adequately situate its proximate fin de siècle occult precursors vis-à-vis psychoanalytic metapsychology. A brief account of Ferenczi's correspondence with Freud on the role of the occult in psychoanalysis is then provided. This constitutes the necessary context for embarking upon an investigation into the ‘psychognostic’ metapsychology co-developed during the course of Ferenczi's ‘mutual analysis’ with the so-called ‘evil genius’, Elizabeth Severn. By way of conclusion, James Grotstein's account of a ‘numinous and immanent psychoanalytic subject’ is highlighted as the locus for a synergistic rapprochement between pre-Freudian and contemporary psychoanalytic conceptualizations of the subject congruent with the ‘Orphic trajectory’ outlined in this paper.

Freud and the Disenchantment of Telepathy: Thought-Transference Analysed and the History of an Unpublished Paper

This article discusses Freud’s presentation on telepathy to his close colleagues at the meeting in the Harz mountains in 1921. It considers the fate of his paper and the reasons why he never published it as a single piece. The development of Freud’s ideas about telepathy during the succeeding years and the reasons that prompted him finally to publish his views on thought-transference in 1925 are also considered. The article also discusses the place of the four cases presented in his writings on telepathy over this period, culminating in his new ‘lecture’ on Dreams and Occultism in 1933. It is suggested that Freud’s persuasion that psychoanalysis could credibly account for thought-transference was in part affected by the degree of trust he held in those presenting him with material, but most of all by his own personal experience. Freud held out against opposition from people like Jones on the matter of the worthiness of the subject for investigation, but never succeeded in integrating it more fully into psychoanalysis, and this position is largely unchanged today.