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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