DGB-NFNP: Counter-Transference and Projection as Distorting Factors In Freud's Interpretation of 'The Wolfman's Dream'

November 9th, 2017,

Good day everyone!

I haven't done much research on Freud's famous 'Wolfman Case' yet -- published in 1918 under the name 'From the History of Infantile Neurosis'. I realize that it has been extensively studied by other researchers, theorists, anti-Freudian critics, etc., and I will probably have more to say about the case later on -- most of my research and theorizing now is based on Freud's work between about 1906 and 1920 mainly, focusing on narcissism, the repetition compulsion, transference, projection, and Freud's creation of 'the death instinct' in 1920, So this essay fits into that time period and offers my critique of how Freud let his own transference projections (counter-transference) interfere with and distort his interpretation of 'The Wolfman's Wolf Dream.'

So view this presentation here as a small piece of a much larger package of essay-presentations that aim to show how all of the concepts I just mentioned above can be tied to my extrapolated and mutative version of Freud's Oedipal Complex Theory which has changed names more often than I can count now but includes 'The MOLD Complex', 'The MOST (Mutative-Oedipal-Seduction-Transference) Complex CEBIDs (Cognitive-Emotional-Behavioral Impulse-Drives, and DFCFAs (Defenses, Fantasies, Compromise-Formations, Allusions and Abreactions).

Let's visit The Wolfman's Dream, borrowing a good chunk of Kendra Cherry's essay on this subject matter, Sept. 29th, 2017 (see reference below)... with my editorial comments at the end of the essay.

"I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying in bed. (My bed stood with its foot towards the window; in front of the window there was a row of old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I had the dream, and night-time.) Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up. My nurse hurried to my bed, to see what had happened to me. It took quite a long while before I was convinced that it had only been a dream; I had had such a clear and life-like picture of the window opening and the wolves sitting on the tree. At last I grew quieter, felt as though I had escaped from some danger, and went to sleep again" 

Borrowed from...

PSYCHOLOGY  HISTORY  SIGMUND FREUD

Sergei Pankejeff: Who Was the Wolf Man?

The Wolf Man, a.k.a. Sergei Pankejeff, Was One of Freud's Most Famous Patients

By Kendra Cherry Updated September 29, 2017

Kendra continues in her essay....

Freud's Analysis of the Wolf Man

Freud believed that the dream was the result of Pankejeff having witnessed his parents having sex. The case of the "Wolf Man" played an important role in Freud's development of his theory of psychosexual development. After a year of treatment, Freud declared Pankejeff "cured" and the man returned to Russia.

Despite Freud's assessment that the problem had been resolved, Pankejeff continued to seek psychoanalysis, often from followers of Freud, until his death in 1979. Pankejeff's assessment of the success of his treatment was far less optimistic than Freud's. Prior to his death, he was interviewed by an Australian journalist and said, "the whole thing looks like a catastrophe. I am in the same state as when I came to Freud, and Freud is no more."

Criticism of Freud's Analysis

Psychologist and science writer Daniel Goleman criticized Freud's analysis and treatment of Pankejeff in The New York Times, writing:

"Freud's key intervention with the Wolf Man rested on a nightmare in which he was lying in bed and saw some white wolves sitting on a tree in front of the open window. Freud deduced that the dream symbolized a trauma: that the Wolf Man, as a toddler, had witnessed his parents having intercourse. Freud's version of the supposed trauma, however, was contradicted by the Wolf Man himself, Sergej Pankejeff, in an interview with Karin Obholzer, a journalist who tracked him down in Vienna in the 1970s.

"Mr. Pankejeff saw Freud's interpretation of his dream as 'terribly far-fetched.' Mr. Pankejeff said, 'The whole thing is improbable,' since in families of his milieu young children slept in their nanny's bedroom, not with their parents.

"Mr. Pankejeff also disputed Freud's claim that he had been cured, and said he resented being 'propaganda' and 'a showpiece for psychoanalysis.' Mr. Pankejeff said, 'That was the theory, that Freud had cured me 100 percent.' However, 'It's all false.' "

  https://www.verywell.com/who-was-the-wolf-man-2795849

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However, there is a better way of explaining Freud's rather grave mistakes as a therapist in this case that casts a rather dark shadow on all of Freud's cases going right back to 1892.

Freud started seeing the Wolfman in 1910 which was just about the same time that Freud started to begin to become aware of the dangers of 'counter-transference' in the therapeutic relationship. Unfortunately, either his understanding of counter-transference and/or his own self-analysis and self-awareness was not sufficient to catch his own 'Oedipal-Id-Transference Projection' into the dream of The Wolfman -- resulting in a 'distorted dream interpretation' based on Freud's own first conscious 'transference memory' of having witnessed his own parents having sex with each other -- which was then projected into Freud's false interpretation of The Wolfman's Dream. We also, unfortunately (or fortunately) see Freud's 'abuse' of his concept of a 'repressed memory' in this case -- there is something definitely wrong about a therapist telling a client what a 'repressed memory' is that the client doesn't remember.

In my opinion, that is just sheer wrong. Looking back at the interpretation now, I can easily see that the so-called 'repressed memory' of the Wolfman having witnessed as a small child his parents having sex with each other was entirely a projective product of Freud's own counter-transference dominated mind -- a memory from Freud's own early life that he definitely did remember but then unconsciously as an analyst 'projected' onto the Wolfman who had no recollection of any such memory. This therapeutic response to me indicates insufficient self-analysis relative to Freud on himself, and consequently, also bad analysis/therapy work -- meaning a bad dream interpretation on Freud's part with The Wolfman.

I believe that Freud's earlier case studies between 1892 and 1895 usually stuck more closely to his clients' real, conscious memories, and thus, for the most part, yield better clinical interpretations. By the time Freud got to his 'Seduction Theory' of 1896 -- all bets are off -- some of his clinical material definitely seemed horrifically real (1896, The Aetiology of Hysteria) but by then Freud was using the concept of 'repression' and thus, could have 'invented' some of his clients' memories.

The only possible 'repressed' memory that I would accept as being possibly real -- especially if it lines up with all the client's 'serial behavior patterns' and 'repetition compulsions' -- is one that the client 're-remembers' him or herself without any prodding, suggesting, persuading...on the part of the therapist.

Freud's most amazing mental attribute as the founder of psychoanalysis -- his creative imagination and perhaps also his righteous, narcissistic, stubbornness -- was also his worst liability -- resulting in shocking, radical, fictitious claims that he held onto -- despite heavy criticism in public and private alike -- like a Bull Terrier hanging onto a 'bone'. And some of them, unfortunately, have persisted to this day meaning that even his most loyal followers (in 1981, that would have been Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler), have been reluctant --- or outright refused -- to give up these 'irrational beliefs' that have essentially torn 'Classical' Psychoanalysis apart -- at least as Freud himself most stringently taught it -- it has essentially become like the Psychoanalytic version of 'Humpty Dumpty' -- and within this small essay or two, I am here to put Freud's 'Humpty Dumpty' at least partly back together again -- in a different way -- a reconstruction of the deconstruction of Classical Psychoanalysis.

To re-state what I quoted Brian Bird as writing back in 1973 (in my last essay) -- it is not unreasonable to assert that our 'transference projections' play a vital part in all of our 'perceptions' -- or at least -- our most important ones -- whether 'true' or 'false', 'accurate' or 'distorted'.

Oftentimes, it is hard to tell the difference because there are very likely to be 'elements of both truth and distortion in our transference-projections' -- a significant part of our 'Post-Oedipal Seduction and/or Abandonment Fantasy Complex' that we use to link the peson we are with -- with 'the skeletons in our closet', our 'unfinished business', our 'narcissistic fixations', our 're-creation and repetition compulsions', our 'serial behavior patterns' -- all stemming usually from our early childhood past with 'mutative, Post-Oedipal New Renditions' of this Childhood Complex evolving -- or devolving -- over the course of our 'repeating' life history.

These ideas all need to be fleshed out over the course of the next series of essays that focus on Freud's theory-building year of 1906 to let's say -- 1923.

Please join me again as these Freudian ideas -- and my 're-interpreted mutations' of them -- continue to be developed around the central concept in this whole presentation -- a much extrapolated version of Freud's 'Oedipal Complex Theory'.

Have a great day!

David Gordon Bain