ON THE WAY TO THE SECRECY OF FREUDIAN PSY CHOANALYSIS - FROM EMMY-VON-N TO TOTEM AND TABOO

The authors approach the work of Sigmund Freud by regarding the theory and history of psychoanalysis in terms of a feature that they have in common, namely secrecy. This proclivity towards secrecy, which stands in contradiction to the psychoanalytic principle of total frankness a nd demystification, is illustrated by a number of examples - the sugge stion made by Jones to Ferenczi and Freud in 1911 for the >>formation of a secret committee to supervise the development of psychoanalysis<< ; the censorship practised by Jones in connection with the use of the Freud Archives; and the case history of Emmy von N., where Freud assum es the role of depositary for the memories communicated by his patient under hypnosis and observes strict secrecy about them. The authors gi ve a particularly detailed account of the evidence of the >>secret of psychoanalysis. to be traced in Totem and Taboo, which they elucidate with the aid of a reading of Shakespeare's Tempest.