ABC Radio National

All In The Mind





Date/Time 04 Dec 2016 12:51:15am
Great show again, Natasha. Thank you.

Just finished reading Erich Fromm's insightful 1959 book: SIGMUND FREUD'S MISSION - An analysis of his personality and influence.

Fromm quotes (page 70) from a Mrs S Bernfeld's account of the circumstances under which Freud rented his apartments in the Bergasse. Until 1891, Freud,with his family, had lived in the Schottenring; one child was on the way, and the family decided to move.

"The move was carefully planned by both Professor and Mrs Freud. They mafe lists of their most important requirements. They spent a considerable time planning their new home.

One afternoon after he had finished his calls he went for a walk and found himself in front of Berggasse 19. He suddenly experienced a great attraction to this house, went in and immediately signed the lease.

He went home, told his wife that he had found the ideal place for them and took her to look at it the same evening. Mrs Freud saw all its faults. However, with characteristic intuition, she realised that Freud had to have this house and no other house would do. So she said she liked it and that she thought they would be able to manage there. They did manage and lived in this gloomy and impractical house for forty-seven years."

Why did Freud develop an instant attraction to this house? Fromm speculates that it was because Victor Adler, the ardent socialist and later undisputed leader of Austrian socialism, had lived here. Freud, who had been invited to Adler's home years before, had been greatly impressed by the house of this man, as his own secret ambition was to become a great political leader.

In Freud's "On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement", he betrays clearly its quasi-political spirit, and writes about a "decisive battle for psychoanalysis" in the "centres of ancient culture".

