Coffee with Freud

319 Pages·2017·4.07 MB·English

by  Brett Kahr

E coffee with

FREUD
E

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E interviews with icons series E
Other titles in the Series
Tea with Winnicott
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E coffee with

FREUD
E

Brett Kahr
With illustrations by
Alison Bechdel
KARNAC
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First published in 2017 by
Karnac Books
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2017 by Brett Kahr
The right of Brett Kahr to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–78220–343–8
Edited, designed, and produced by Communication Crafts
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
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To J. and R.,
With deepest love and affection
“. . . spring is beautiful and so is love.”
Professor Sigmund Freud, Letter to H.D. [Hilda Doolittle],
24th May, 1936
(Freud, 1936b, p. 180)
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E interviews with icons E
In this new series of “posthumous interviews” we have resurrected the
most famous psychoanalysts from the dead and have invited them for a
frank and detailed conversation about their lives and their work.
In Coffee with Freud, the father of psychoanalysis pays another visit to
Vienna’s renowned Café Landtmann, where he had often enjoyed read-
ing newspapers, while sipping Kaffee. Freud explains how he came to
invent psychoanalysis, speaks bluntly about his feelings of betrayal by
Carl Gustav Jung, and recounts his flight from the Nazis, all the while
explaining his theories of symptom formation and dream interpre­
tation.
In Tea with Winnicott, England’s most famous psychoanalyst returns to his
consulting room in London’s Chester Square, and over many cups of
tea, he reminisces about his childhood, his training, his work at the
Paddington Green Children’s Hospital, his technical experiments with
patients, and, also, provides readers with a comprehensive survey of
his many contributions to developmental psychology and to clinical
practice. Tea with Winnicott – the first volume in this series – has already
garnered great critical success, having received a glowing review in the
British Medical Journal as “riveting” and “written wonderfully” and “hard
to imagine a more congenial and convivial introduction”. The Guardian
newspaper chose Tea with Winnicott as one of its “Books of the Year”.
In future volumes, John Bowlby will take us on a grouse­shooting expedi-
tion – his favourite weekend passion – through the English countryside,
while lambasting his colleagues for their failure to understand the true
origins of mental illness. And Melanie Klein will explain how she came
to develop child psychoanalysis while teaching us some of her favourite
kitchen recipes.
These posthumous interviews, described as exercises in “imaginative non­
fiction” – all beautifully written, concisely composed, steeped in historical
rigour, and full of hitherto unpublished archival gems – will provide
students and qualified professionals alike with a master­class in psycho-
logical theory and practice, comfortably contained within one portable,
affordable, and lavishly illustrated volume.
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CONTENTS
about the author and illustrator ix
Introductory note 1
Dramatis personae 3
THE INTERVIEW
cup 1 The resurrection of Professor Sigmund Freud 7
cup 2 Beyond the Narrenturm:
towards a critique of psychiatry 25
cup 3 A Moravian childhood 45
cup 4 Freud as translator 65
cup 5 Smoking a Trabuco cigar 83
cup 6 Polish liquor on Frau Benvenisti’s couch 101
cup 7 Digging for antiquities 121
cup 8 Brook lampreys, eels, and a bit of cocaine 139
cup 9 Freud and his fecundity 165
cup 10 Blowing off steam: how to treat a hysteric 187
cup 11 A suicidal crown prince
and a murdered empress 211
cup 12 On the verge of dreaming 229
Epilogue: How I came to meet Freud 259
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german glossary 269
acknowledgements 277
references 281
index 301
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
Brett Kahr (Author) has worked in the mental health profession for
over thirty­five years. He is Senior Fellow at Tavistock Relationships at
the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London, and Consult-
ant Psychotherapist at The Balint Consultancy. He is also Consultant in
Psychology to The Bowlby Centre in London, and a Trustee of the Freud
Museum and of Freud Museum Publications. He serves as Series Editor
of the “Forensic Psychotherapy Monograph Series” and as Series Co­
Editor of the “History of Psychoanalysis Series” for Karnac Books. His
books include Life Lessons from Freud and Tea with Winnicott. A registrant
of both the British Psychoanalytic Council and the United Kingdom
Council for Psychotherapy, he works with individuals and couples in
Hampstead, North London.
Alison Bechdel (Illustrator) is an American cartoonist. Originally
best known for the long­running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For,
she came to critical success in 2006 with her graphic memoir Fun Home,
which was subsequently adapted as a Broadway musical and won the
Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015. She is a 2014 recipient of the
MacArthur “Genius” Award.
E ix E
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