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that money was the real issue, and he urged Spielrein's mother to
compensate him for his services. After reading this letter and hear–
ing J ung's corroboration of Spielrein's version, Freud revised his
earlier opinions of both Spielrein andJung, the latter his chosen suc–
cessor. Freud stated that he had been "wrong" in automatically siding
with J ung, "wrong" in misconstruing the facts to Spielrein's disad–
vantage, and that he was now pleased with Spielrein's maturity in
resolving the disturbing intimacy with Jung.
Yet, Spielrein resolved her conflict with Jung in her own
peculiar fashion. She stepped "between" Jung and Freud, that is, she
became the self-appointed intermediary, attempting to reconcile
their two systems and promoting a rapprochement between the
estranged thinkers after their 1913 split.
J ung himself admitted being a scoundrel and a knave. Spielrein
called him a "No-good." She felt used and abused by him, desiring to
"forgive him or murder him." On one occasion she smacked Jung in
the face, while threatening him with a knife. Carotenuto refers to
Jung's behavior as a betrayal. He intimates thatJung may have been
incapable of loving, that he had marked paranoid tendencies, and
that he was opportunistically concerned with his professional reputa–
tion. Technically, he explains Jung's amorous involvement with his
patient in terms of "psychotic countertransference," alleging that the
:analyst's emotional reaction to Spielrein triggered some "psychotic
nuclei" in him.
In
other passages, nonetheless, Carotenuto attributes
Jung's behavior to youth, inexperience, bad taste, exuberance, even
to his intuitive faculties. The account of Jung's irresistibility to
women is circular: women found him "seductive" because of Jung's
supposed "feminine" nature. By implication, Carotenuto persuades
us to forgive Jung, to remain conscious of fifty years of solid and
creative contributions, and always to remember Freud's immature
blindspots. Carotenuto repeatedly and invidiously compares the
Spielrein affair with Freud's infatuation with cocaine, but his
analogies work against holding Jung accountable for his actions.
To vilify Jung with accusations of bad faith is one thing, to of–
fer a critical analysis is quite another. The documents reveal that the
Spielrein matter came to light at a critical historical conjuncture
when relations between Freud and Jung began to deteriorate.
Without rehearsing the complex reasons for the Freud-Jung split, we
need to be aware that personal and theoretical differences converged
to produce the rupture.
We know that Freud's Jewishness, the so-called 'jewish ques-
