| The present study examined links between Sigmund Freud's Chassidic-Jewish heritage and the development of psychoanalytic dream interpretation. Freud's Jewish identification was rife with conflict and complexity heretofore explored, but not from a Chassidic perspective. Freud's maternal and paternal relatives identified as Chassidim, a pious Jewish collective who held steadfast to their deeply orthodox ways, immersed in the mystical teachings of Kabbalah and the seminal text of Jewish law, the Talmud. Father Jakob Freud was one of thousands of Chassidim who abandoned their practice during the Jewish enlightenment that swept Eastern Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, the Haskalah , in order to assimilate and to flee persecution. According to many biographers, Jakob raised his family in a secular fashion, ultimately fostering his son's early attachment to atheism and general disdain for religion. Freud routinely minimized the impact of his Jewish background on his daily life and the unfolding of psychoanalysis. The biographical examination, through discovery and subsequent release of personal correspondences and family artifacts, reveals that his upbringing was indeed infused with Jewish culture and religion both in the home and school. Parallels between basic concepts of psychoanalytic theory and main sources of Chassidic lore, the Zohar and Tanya, are presented. A textual analysis of The Interpretation of Dreams uncovers how Chassidic threads manifest in Freud's burgeoning theory of dream interpretation. The analysis first shows that Dreams, in its original German, was not so rigidly scientific as introduced by the Strachey translations, but rather associated to pseudoscientific realms of astrology and ancient Jewish dream literature. Concepts of dream-work (condensation, distortion, displacement), means of representation (day-residues), and considerations of representability (wordplay, free-association) all possess sources in rabbinic legend and Jewish exegetical literature of the Torah, Talmud, and Zohar. Further examination of Torah figure Joseph's interpretations of Pharaoh's (King of Egypt) dreams uncovers parallels to Freudian dream interpretation in terms of structure, secondary revision, and means of symbolism. Unearthing Chassidic remnants in Freud's history and writings will set the stage for further detailed explorations into connections between Chassidism and psychoanalysis and will promote examination of the contexts that shaped the origins of psychoanalytic theory. |
