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analysis. Insights from this self-analysis, which was the first psychoanalysis, formed
the basis of Freud’s great work The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900. About his nanny,
Freud wrote in 1897 to Fliess:
My “primary originator” (of neurosis) was an ugly, elderly but clever woman who told me a great deal about God and hell, and gave me a high opinion of my own capacities…. If…I succeed in resolving my hysteria I shall have to thank the memory of the old woman who provided me at such an early age with the means of living and surviving. You see how the old liking breaks though again.43 Later, in The Interpretation of Dreams, he wrote (as noted earlier) that he even had a vague conscious memory of her. He added that “it is reasonable to suppose that the child [Freud] loved the old woman.”44 Additional evidence of the nanny’s great importance is provided by another letter, in which Freud was commenting upon a recent dream: “The real meaning is that the old woman, the nanny, stood for me, and that the doctor’s mother was my mother.”45 These are most significant admissions, for if Freud’s nanny did provide the basis of his early self-confidence and his first “means of living and surviving,” she was his functional mother and therefore much more than just the origin of his neurosis (even though the “neurotic” properties of Freud’s personality are extremely important for an understanding of him and of the origin and nature of psychoanalysis). His awareness of his love for her breaking through, and his comment that in the dream the nanny stood for himself, underscore the positive contribution of this old woman to Freud’s personality with particular clarity: In a fundamental sense, she was a parent (an originator), a mother, to him. It is the basic positive significance of the nurse that other commentators have neglected. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that Freud nowhere made such claims about the early importance of his own mother. Indeed, this lack of evidence further supports the present view that the nanny was the primary mother. His Nanny: Importance for ReligionWhat we must look at is whether this woman influenced Freud’s understanding of religion, and, if so, how. Here again, the letters of Freud provide direct evidence. As quoted above, Freud noted that his nanny “told me a great deal about God and hell….” A short time later, in the next letter, Freud picked up the same theme again, and wrote as follows: I asked my mother whether she remembered my nurse. “Of course,” she said, “an elderly woman, very shrewd indeed. She was always taking you to church [in alle Kirche — in all the churches; Freiberg, though small, had at least three |