Defence and Sexuality

Abstract

The main feature of all of the subsequent accounts of the Anna O. case that we have been considering is the question of the transference. This is evidently clear from the context in which Freud develops his public position in 1914 and 1925, but it is also carried through into the supplementary narratives that he passed on privately. This matter is not simply a contingent issue of some details of the case that Freud thought had not been properly disposed of; it is the central principle of the dispute that divided him from Breuer, a key feature of the way psychoanalysis developed after Breuer and, as far as Freud was concerned, fundamental to its continuing existence. Having surveyed the source material on the case that originated after its publication, but still during Freud’s own lifetime, we must now take a step back to reconsider in the light of this the immediate context of the case history as it was published in 1895. We need to examine more closely how the question of the transference came to be so important in the breakdown of Breuer and Freud’s collaboration, and why it cannot be separated from the issues that drove them apart.

Wenn sie wüssten, wo das liegt, was sie suchen, so suchten sie ja nicht.¹

J. W. von Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen (Posth.)