Cries of the Wolf Man (History of psychoanalysis)

Part of the History of Psychoanalysis Monograph Series edited by The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Monograph 1: An intensive study of Freud's most famous patient, "Cries of the Wolf Man" combines and harmonizes three approaches: clinical, historical, and textual. Mahony's syncretistic strategy has yielded a treasure trove of findings, including hitherto unnoticed anniversary and countertransferential phenomena traceable in the very inditing of the primary clinical accounts about the Wolf Man. Appropriately enough, Capther One arranged in systematic fashion the diverse pertinent data of the Wolf' Man's life drawn from his own memoirs, Freud's and Brunswick's case histories, Muriel Gardiner's supplementary essagys, and the interviews conducted by karin Obholzer. Reinforced by a scrutiny of Freud's case history and some 150 subsequent psychoanalytical commentaries on the case in English, Franch, and German, the second and third chapters critically examine Freud's analytic treatment. Examining the data in light of modern clinical theory, this pair of chapters brings up to date the earlier dynamic descrptions of Freud's legendary patient and also exposes an impressive series of inconsistencies in terminology, methodological demonstration, and chronological reconstruction in Freud's account. The more or less content-oriented analysis of the second and third chapters lays the foundation for the formalistic analysis of Chapters Four and Five; together they comprise a lexical and narrative investigation which might serve as a profitable model for evaluatively examining Freud's other works as well as for appreciating their wondrous complexity. Chapter Six concerns the involution in the Wolf Man's follow-up treatment and its sorrowful aftermath. Attempting to show that Freud's genius grows in our estimation as we widen our perspectives, the final chapter fittingly extends the stylistic focus from the Wolf Man case to Freud's writings in general.