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De Ik-splijting van de man Mozes en de inscheuring in zijn Ik : een commentaar bij Freuds Mozeswerk, zijn Ik-splijtingstekst en de Wolfmancasus

(1997) Mampuys, Alfred Frans Maria

This study is mostly devoted to a text analysis of Freud’s Work on Moses
(1939), the case of the Wolf Man (1914-1918) and the text on the splitting
of the Ego (Jan 1938 - 1940). In the course of this text analysis the fertility
and the relation of these selected texts will be shown for an interpretation
of the last steps of Freud’s self-analysis.
The first part is totally devoted to the Work on Moses.
By means of the three forewords in this work we can develop hypotheses
concerning the consecutive phases in the realization of the Work on Moses
and the construction that was eventually published and which was drafted
by Freud from the material of these consecutive phases.
Thus chapters I and II are parts from a first Work on Moses that was
written in 1934. The elaborate third chapter on the other hand is for the
bigger part a second Moses’ version that was (re)written in 1938 in which
Freud inserted the remainder,the ‘most objectionable and dangerous’ part
of his first Moses’ version at the last instant. This remainder of the first
Moses’ version can be found in chapter III, second part, from p. 211 to p.
239 (in the German edition, G.W. XVI. English edition, S.E. Vol. 23, p. 105
- 130). When comparing both the remainder of the first Moses’ version and
the second Moses’ version, they appear to differ on main points of importance.
The importance of this exceptional construction for the eventual interpretation
of the Work on Moses is then extensively investigated.
Thus Freud’s interpretation of the Jewish-Christian religion in the first
Moses’ version appears to emanate from an omnipotence-construction,
whereby he as a writer takes the place of the primal father, in this case
Moses. At the same time this omnipotence-construction is disavowed
which explains the impasse in which Freud landed with this version and
which impeded his publication of the Work on Moses for years.
Only after writing the text of the splitting of the Ego (Jan 1938. Die Ichspaltung
im Abwehrvorgang G.W. XVII, pp. 59-61. English edition:
Splitting of the Ego in the process of defence S.E. Vol.23, p. 271 -278)
which actually analyses the disavowal mechanism also active in the first
Moses’ version, gradually a development within Freud takes place which
leads to the writing of a new version. This new version, the second, crosses
out the account of the first version, so that on the one hand this first
version is destroyed in its original design and on the other hand this first
version as inserted remainder in the second version becomes the confession
of the murder that Freud committed on the father function in his
first Moses’ version.
After establishing Freud’s quotation - albeit concealed - and resumption of
the analysis of the case of the Wolf Man as the only clinical illustration in
his second Moses’ version (S.E. Vol 23, p. 78-79) and after ascertaining
that the text of the splitting of the Ego is mainly based on material from
this same case, the second part of this study takes up the case of the
Wolf Man extensively (1914-1918. G.W. XII, p. 29-157. English edition:
S.E. Vol.17, p. 7 - 122).
This part not only analyses large parts of the text on this case, but also
other subsequent texts in which the Wolfman appears concealed or unconcealed
and which indicate that Freud kept on struggling with problems
that he had with this ‘analytical example’ which wouldn’t heal, problems
that he found hard to admit. Our analysis sets to the short correspondence
between Freud and the Wolf Man (1926), which is also seen against
the background of the latter’s later analysis with R. M. Brunswick. Our
analysis shows that as well for Freud as for the Wolfman the analysis got
stuck in both their disavowal mechanisms rendering the exchange on both
sides fraudulent.
After the long detour via the case of the Wolf Man the third part of this
study is a text analysis, line by line, of the short but compact text of the
splitting of the Ego. The preceding investigation of the Work on Moses
and the case of the Wolf Man allows us to make the link with and show
the relevance of the text of the splitting of the Ego for the interpretation
of the case of the Wolf Man and the hinging function that the text of the
splitting of the Ego had and has for the breach of the disavowal in the
first Moses’ version, so that the Work on Moses could be completed.
The disavowal which plays a central role in the Work on Moses and the
case of the Wolf Man, is now also investigated from the perspective of the
text of the splitting of the Ego. The complex characteristics of the disavowal
as we find them in Freud’s text(s), allow a clear distinction from
negation and repression (‘Verneinung’ and ‘Verdrängung’).
It is this text of the splitting of the Ego which eventually allows Freud to
make the step from a (disavowed) ‘splitting of the Ego of the man Moses/
Freud’ to the establishment of a ‘rift in his ego’ (‘Einriss im Ich’).
Part four tries to trace to what extent Freud realizes with his Work on
Moses his intention to supply a psychoanalytical contribution to the
understanding of the Jewish-Christian religion mainly.
This part recapitulates the preceding work and stipulates that the Work
on Moses in the previously discovered latent structure (see first part of
the study) exposes the religion-interpretation of the first Moses’ version as
a disavowed omnipotence-link between religion and psychoanalysis, which
is in fact destructive for both psychoanalysis and religion.
Only in the second Moses’ version and after the confession of the murder
committed on the father and mother function which is raised by the insertion
of the first Moses’ version, Freud is able to establish a communication
between religion and psychoanalysis which contains creative possibilities
for both without confusion of both domains or bringing them up against
each other.
This part then establishes from his text of the splitting of the Ego and his
Work on Moses that Freud not only knew better how to work through
lifelong problems and so profited in that sense and received something
from his psychoanalytical self-investigation, but that he also profited and
received something from the Jewish-Christian religion.
Although several critical observations can be justly made about Freud’s
opinions on Biblical Jewry and Christianity which only become understandable
from his self-analytical process, this part tries to show that the
more essential representations of the Jewish-Christian religion that
Freud then interprets, are a good representation of the ‘religion of his
forefathers’ which he grew up with from his childhood onwards.
Furthermore we also try to show in this last part that the influence of
these representations can be found, albeit latently, in Freud’s interpre-
tation of this religion. The interaction between Freud’s interpretation of
the Jewish-Christian religion on the one hand and the latent influence of
Jewish-Christian thinking on his own selfanalysis on the other hand, is
shown by means of the writings of the prophet Hosea and an important
text of Paul (Rom 7, 7-25). In this study we call this a reciprocal interpretation
or an ‘interpenetration’ between Freud and Hosea and between
Freud and Paul.
Vertaling: Mevr Irène