FROM CASES OF HYSTERIA TO THE THERAPEUTIC SOCIETY
229
As we know, Freud came to America just once, in 1909 to lecture at
Clark University. According to Nathan G. Hale, America then was domi–
nated by a "civilized morality" that required women to be prudish and
virtuous, sexually reticent and ignorant before marriage, as well as pure in
thought. But men as well were expected to observe religious purity, to
practice continence, and even mari tal celibacy. In this environment, physi–
cians diagnosed much neurasthenia but did not know how to deal with it.
The neurologist George M. Beard had searched for a cure as early as 1879.
Subsequently, American neurologists such as Morton Prince (1854-
1929), James Jackson Putnam (1842-1918), and the physician Smith Eli
Jeliffe (1866-1945) were investigating the "French school" of Charcot,
Bernheim and Janet, and were practicing suggestion and (occasionally) hyp–
nosis. So were the neurologist Stanley Hall (1844-1924) and the
philosopher William James (1842-1910), the nation's first psychologists, and
Boris Sidis (1867-1933), a psychopathologist and James's student. Some of
them, who constituted the so-called "Boston school," had read about
Freud's "miraculous" cures, a few had met him at congresses, but only
A.A.
Brill had visited Freud in Vienna before his trip to America. They invited
him in order to learn about his method, and about the connections between
somatic symptoms and sexual repression. His "Introductory Lectures"
received wide-spread, even sensationalist, coverage by the press; he forged
friendships, especially with James Jackson Putnam; and the analysis of
dreams caught the imagination of the larger American public.
However, this enthusiasm was only skin-deep. American physicians had
been inclined to look for brain lesions or other pathologies, for deteriora–
tion of the cerebral cortex, and for hereditary "mental defects" (especially
in new immigrants), and then tended to adopt what they called the
"somatic style." Still, the Boston physicians who treated nervous diseases,
despite their reputation for prudery, were interested in sexual problems,
and did use hypnosis when they deemed it helpful. A few others, such as
Charles
L.
Dana at Cornell Medical College, who had proposed that
neurasthenia was a sign of insanity, eventually adopted the somatic style as
well. At the same time, the so-called "functional psychiatrists" tended to
treat neuroses with rest, diet, electricity, isolation, and suggestion. And fifty
to seventy-five percent of cases of hysteria were being diagnosed as hered–
itary. Altogether, mental illness was on the rise and the physicians didn't
know how to deal with it.
Generally, in contrast to Freud, the Americans who would accept psy–
choanalysis came from Puritan stock and had strong religious beliefs and
affiliations. Whereas Putnam, for instance, spoke of a world of "love and
hope in it," Freud saw himself as a godforsaken "incredulous Jew." And
Putnam's optimism clashed with Freud's increasing pessimism. But they
hared a strong sen e of ethic.
