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situa tion is tha t no thing tha t occurs within it is irrelevant to wha t is
go ing on within the pa tient. T his is one reason for the general rul e o f
analytic a bstinence, and one reason wh y standards for analyti c candi–
da tes ought to be stringent. Misused as it was here it becomes an
instrument for di ssimula ti on and ha rm.
The larger scandal of this situa ti on , however, touches upon
Brunswi ck's analytic co ll eagues. T hey knew about h er unfortuna te
addi ction. They were in a position to blow the whi stl e and effectively
shut her down by referring no o ther pa tients to her. Th ey did no t. Why
they did n ot, and wha t and whether it had an ything to do with her
special rela tion to Freud , remains unknown . But tha t they behaved
with profess ional irresponsibility seems quite beyond doubt.
The second scandal was brought to li ght by Roazen in nin eteen
hundred sixty-nine when he published
Brother Animal,
whi ch was in
e[[ect a first installment of
Freud and his Followers.
T hi s wo rk was an
account o f Victor T ausk's short and tragic life, and it was in additi on
an omino us sign of things to come. T au sk was a gifted and troubl ed
man who after trying several different careers decided to become a
medical doctor, p sychia tri st and psychoanalys t. He enli sted himself as
a disciple of Freud 's, and moved to Vi enna. He and Lo u And reas–
Salome were lovers for about a year. After serving in World War I,
T ausk returned to Vienna and tried to enter into analysis with Freud.
His reques t was refused-Freud was not comfo rtabl e with certain kinds
of di sturbed people. Instead Freud recommended tha t Ta usk enter
analysis with Helene Deutsch who was herself being ana lyzed by
Freud. This arrangement soon became unworkable, and Tausk (who
talked about almost nothing but Freud during his own sessions) began
to interfere with Deutsch 's own analysis with Freud. After three
months Freud intervened . He told Deutsch tha t she h ad to termina te
one of these rela tions. Deutsch chose to stay with Freud. Tausk then
decided to marry (he h ad been married and divorced before), and chose
a former p ati ent of hi s own . Three months after the termina ti on o f hi s
analysis, a nd on the day before he was to o btain hi s marr iage li cense, he
committed suicide.
These are the essential facts of the episode. Althou gh it wo uld not
be precise to say tha t the psychoanalytic profession performed a cover–
up o f the case, it is also quite undeni abl y true tha t the p rofess ion didn 't
present it as a glowing incident in the hi story of the mo vement. Roazen
dug around and put all the facts toge ther. Wha t he did with those facts
is something else again, and
Bro ther Animal,
like
Freud and his
Followers,
is bo th an interesting and an awful book. Sometimes
