Citation

Zeal P. Br. J. Psychother. 2006; 22(4): 449-462.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1752-0118.2006.tb00303.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Schreber and Freud never met. This gives Freud the freedom to interpret without having to contend with Schreber's reactions. This paper explores connections and disconnections between their two texts. Both men are attempting to work out the place of the feminine in a man, one from a position of masculine collapse, the other from a position of masculine strength. Unheard, Schreber became increasingly woebegone and strident until, with the help of his memoir as a self-object, he began to reintegrate. Freud, on the other hand, well heard in his psychoanalytic fraternity, could venture an at the time seemingly unchallengeable reading of Schreber's memoir. Since 1911 a considerable literature has accumulated, analysing Schreber and reinterpreting Freud, and this paper briefly considers some of the main and divergent strands, and includes a response to the mystical in Schreber.