| Chapter Six |
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The Mature and Final years: 1900-1939 WE NOW TAKE UP the mature years, the last three decades or so of Freud’s life—a time in which he was a world-renowned figure. These were the years in which the intense motivations of his earlier years receded, for the most part, into the background. He had been married to Martha for 20 years and more; his religious crisis was, if not resolved, at least stabilized; he was now a full professor, and increasingly acknowledged as an intellectual figure of historic significance. As a consequence, the intensity of his ambition was allayed. This was also the period in which his energies were spent in the intellectual and personal conflicts associated with his psychoanalytic theories. Freud was not often actively concerned with the reactions of those outside of psychoanalysis; instead, it was the defections of his very best students that would emotionally and intellectually preoccupy him. Adler, and then Jung, Rank, and many others, would at first be part of the Freudian theoretical world, then rebel and go off on their own. The Freud-Pfister LettersTo begin this section, let us consider a correspondence1 that contrasts markedly with the prior topics—a correspondence that in many respects constituted the noblest set of exchanges of Freud’s life. The correspondence was with the Reverend Oskar Pfister, a Swiss Protestant minister, who also became an early psychoanalyst, and, after they met, a life-long friend of Freud and his family. In presenting material from the Freud-Pfister correspondence, I make only a few comments, and instead generally let the quotations speak for themselves. I do request that, at the end of this section, the reader ask |