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  • Title: Sigmund Freud and money.
    Author: Warner SL.
    Journal: J Am Acad Psychoanal; 1989; 17(4):609-22. PubMed ID: 2695505.
    Abstract:
    I have tried to clarify Sigmund Freud's attitude toward money during the different time periods of his life. Most biographers have written that Freud was born into a poor family that later was elevated to the socioeconomic middle class in Vienna. This traditional viewpoint can be supported by various of Freud's letters and writings. A very different viewpoint has been proposed by the well-known American economist, Peter Drucker. As has been noted, his parents knew the Freud family in Vienna where Drucker actually met Freud. Drucker contends that Freud unconsciously misrepresented his parents' financial situation by creating the myth that they lived in poverty. Furthermore, Freud also developed another myth that it was because of the strong anti-Semitism in Vienna that he was so delayed in being appointed a professor of psychiatry. Drucker points out that the majority of the Viennese physicians were Jewish and that Freud's becoming a professor did not entail a delay and was not affected by any anti-Semitism in Vienna. Another area of conflict between Freud and the other Viennese physicians was Freud's refusal to treat any of his psychoanalytic patients without a fee. Freud believed that treating a patient in analysis for free created a transference-countertransference problem that might doom the treatment to failure. Freud's transference explanation for not taking on charity patients did not satisfy many of his Viennese physician colleagues. They believed that Freud was given an opportunity to accept their traditional standards and turned it down. In their eyes, Freud rejected them, they did not reject him. The same reasoning applied to the Viennese physicians' request for some scientific proof of the efficacy of psychoanalysis. Freud could only provide them with anecdotal or testimonial evidence to support psychoanalytic treatment. This placed psychoanalysis in the category of a belief system and not a scientific treatment. Drucker explains Freud's "obsession" with having lived in poverty as a manifestation of his "poorhouse neurosis." According to Drucker this syndrome was frequently found among Viennese during the last quarter of the 19th century. It was an irrational and deep-seated fear that an individual and his family were on the verge of being placed in the poorhouse because they lacked any funds. Freud does not specifically mention his having this irrational fear or obsession, but he made several statements quoted here indicating such a dread. At a recent psychoanalytic meeting I asked Freud scholar John Gedo of Chicago if he thought Freud experienced a "poorhouse neurosis."(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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