grgr (20): the nose job according to wilhelm fliess
Lorentzen / Nicklaus
lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de
Sat Feb 19 06:11:31 CST 2000
"... oh mercy, this is embarrassing but ... well his n o s e actually seems to
be erecting, the mucus beginning to flow yes a nasal hardon here and trudi has
certainly noticed all right, how could she help but ..." (p. 439)
wilhelm fliess (1858-1928), an otalaryngologist from berlin, was freud's male
couple mailing partner, while he was working on the "traumdeutung" [1900]. sigi
developed a transference on fliess which was quite favorable for his
self-analyzation & the emergence of the new science. here comes some stuff on
fliess from peter gay's freud bio in my amateur re-translation from the german
edition: "his favourite theories sound extraordinarily bizarre; fliess chose the
nose as the dominating organ, influencing health and disease of the human being.
besides this, he was devoted to a scheme of bio-rhythmical cycles of 23 and 28
days, by which men and women are said to be reigned. knowing this, he believed,
the doctor would have no problem to diagnose all kinds of states and diseases.
at the turn of the century, however, these ideas, today nearly totally
dis-reputated, were welcome and even supported by reputated researchers in
several countries ... fliess influenced freud's theories highly, he was giving
him ideas and support. he was a hard working and sharp minded reader of freud's
manuscripts. he brought freud to an understanding of the essential unity of
human culture and the conclusiveness of all human manifestations ... he helped
freud to focus jokes as significant material for psychoanalytic research. fliess
also speculated about the infantile sexuality in his writings of the mid 1890s,
years before freud was willing to label such a scandelous idea consequently as
his own. while freud seems to have been the first one to say that a sexual
uneasiness is to be found on the ground of all neurosisses, fliess himself was
the first one to argue for the idea of human bisexuality, later watching freud
working it out into a basic priciple ... one could bring good reasons for
fliess' ambitious try to ground biology on mathematics. there was also nothing
ridiculous about the assertion that a certain organ of the body throws its
shadow above the others. and one surely could expect from a psychonanalyst a
certain interest in the nose, in its form resembling the male genital, in its
tendency to bleed resembling the female genital. the idea of shifting from one
part of the body to the other - not only of thoughts, but also of symptoms -
should become a major prop of psychoanalytical diagnosis. a scientist who, like
freud, was to postulate erogenous zones, which shift in the course of human
development, could be fond of a theory, saying that "genital places" inside the
nose influence the course of menstruation and of giving birth ..."
literally fliess in german means: flow! kfl / ps: stay tuned, this afternoon i
switch from the nose to the ear ...
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