The Letters of Sigmund Freud to Jeanne Lampl-de Groot, 1921-1939: Psychoanalysis and Politics in the Interwar Years

Freud wrote 76 letters to the Dutch psychoanalyst Jeanne Lampl-de Groot between 1921 and 1939. These letters are personable, lively, and compassionate and convey his respect and caring for Jeanne, who was his patient, pupil, and eventually his esteemed professional colleague. The letters are sociohistorical documents that contain Freud’s thoughts about pertinent issues in psychoanalysis and the interwar sociopolitical situation in Vienna and Germany.

Jeanne Lampl-de Groot was an internationally known psychoanalyst who published extensively on psychoanalytic theory and practice. She regularly wrote long letters to Freud when residing outside of Vienna, seeking his advice on personal and professional matters and discussing with him her evolving ideas about psychoanalysis, including her disagreement with Freud about female sexual development. It is unfortunate that Jeanne had her letters to Freud destroyed because it sometimes makes Freud’s somewhat elliptical responses difficult to place in context. For example, it is quite probable that she wrote detailed descriptions of her husband’s emotional issues, which Freud then merely alluded to. Because we don’t know the specifics of what she wrote, his responses remain ambiguous, and therefore problematic to translate. Nonetheless, Freud’s responses do reveal a great deal about Jeanne and her passion for psychoanalysis. The book also includes several of her letters to her parents, which allows the reader to get to know Jeanne’s intelligent, thoughtful voice, her thoughts about the evolving science of psychoanalysis, her experience during her psychoanalysis with Freud, and her concerns about the rise of anti-Semitism in Austria and Germany.

This book introduces to its readers a very personable Freud and provides insight into his thoughts about the development of critical psychoanalytic concepts such as the death drive, masochism, lay analysis, and his changing views on the length of a psychoanalysis. We also hear about historical events in the 1920s and 1930s as we witness Freud and Lampl-de Groot move through their personal and professional lives with dignity and perseverance.