FROM CASES OF HYSTERIA TO THE THERAPEUTIC SOCIETY
243
creation. No question that the many different strands of this knowledge
were there. Freud borrowed a great many things from many people. So do
all composers and artists and scientists, and even
I.
We all borrow. The
greatest compliment is borrowing from somebody else and not even
acknowledging it, because it's so bright, so meaningful, and so deep wi thin
you that it is very close to truth. I think it's somewhat unnecessary to worry
whether he did or did not invent certain things. But it is important to real–
ize that he put it together differently than Nietzsche, or anyone else. I
certainly would rather be a follower of Freud than of Nietzsche.
Leon Cooper:
We are often in that situation. No matter what ideas or
themes we propose, there is always someone who says you could find
something similar in a footnote here or there. There are always predeces–
sors, ideas already in the air. If you were to take an extreme point of view,
nothing new could ever happen. Certainly the world is different since
Freud, so he must have done something. It is what scientists do, putting
things together that makes a difference in the world.
Robert Wistrich:
I agree with the last point. Certainly whatever the bor–
rowings, and Freud made many, it is quite clear that psychoanalysis as he
defined it did not have any single predecessor. I disagree that there is such a
strong Nietzschean influence on Freud. I think Freud is in many ways anti–
Nietzschean, especially when you look at the kind of perspectivist and
irrational elements in Nietzsche's teachings. I think that these features are fun–
damentally different from Freud and therefore, whether or not he was
influenced by this or that particular strand in Nietzscheanism, it is quite
understandable that he would not want to claim that ancestry. However, my
question to Edith would be,
if
we could bring Freud back to life on this plat–
form and ask him whether his expectations with regard to psychoanalysis have
been fulfilled, what would he say? Has the adoption of Freudian ideas, whether
in America or elsewhere, been a fulfillment or perhaps a betrayal of his ideas?
Helen Meyers:
I have a tape recording of him at the end of his life, where
he talks about what he hopes psychoanalysis would do and what he feels it
has done. He was very unhappy. It fell far short of what he had expected and
hoped from it. I believe he would be happier now with the burgeoning of so
many new ideas in psychoanalysis-Freud loved ideas-and with all the
interest in psychoanalysis, like this panel. He would have been, however, I
think deeply hurt by some of the misinterpretations of his work and motives.
Robert Wistrich:
But the question is
what
precisely would have disap–
pointed him. This is after all 1996, and a lot has happened since his death.
So the answer cannot be so simple.
