Introduction: The Wolf Man's Rorschach

HP Blum - The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2013 - Taylor & Francis
HP Blum
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2013Taylor & Francis
Only three of the patients among Freud's psychoanalytic case histories were actually
analyzed by Freud and the Wolf Man is the longest and most complex of the case histories.
Only the Wolf Man (Sergei Pankejeff, 1886–1979) was subsequently followed by
generations of psychoanalysts through psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, interviews,
correspondence and social contacts. Adding another dimension, the Wolf Man provided his
own recollections and reflections about his life and his psychoanalytic therapy. The lifetime …
Only three of the patients among Freud’s psychoanalytic case histories were actually analyzed by Freud and the Wolf Man is the longest and most complex of the case histories. Only the Wolf Man (Sergei Pankejeff, 1886–1979) was subsequently followed by generations of psychoanalysts through psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, interviews, correspondence and social contacts. Adding another dimension, the Wolf Man provided his own recollections and reflections about his life and his psychoanalytic therapy. The lifetime follow-up is unique, particularly given analytic and ethical concern for anonymity and confidentiality. The Wolf Man is here re-introduced in a contemporary analytic and cultural context, with a reconsideration of his severe psychopathology and some of the remarkable aspects of his life and treatments. It is anticipated that the Rorschach will contribute further to the analytic investigation of this classic case. The Wolf Man’s Rorschach protocol, administered by Dr. Frederick S. Weil (1900–1958), was presented to me by Dr. Frederick Weil’s widow, Dr. Annemarie P. Weil (1910–1994), a legacy she related to my writings relevant to the Wolf Man. Both Drs. Weil were training analysts of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute where F. Weil offered a course on the Rorschach in 1948. He had studied in Switzerland with clinicians who had been trained by Rorschach. The psychoanalytic community has hardly been aware of the existence of the Wolf Man’s Rorschach. It is not known who first proposed that it be administered or how contact was established between the Wolf Man and Dr. Weil. Nor do we know what the Wolf Man was told about the Rorschach test or about Dr. Weil or why he agreed to take the test. The meeting of the Wolf Man with Dr. Weil and the test were arranged following a long correspondence. The Wolf Man spent most of his two days in Austria with F. Weil discussing his symptomatic complaints, especially depression, referring to past treatments, and essentially talking about himself. He wrote of his pleasure in taking the Rorschach and that Dr. Weil’s initial impression was of obsessive compulsive neurosis (Gardiner, 1971). The Rorschach was administered and interpreted in German; I was given F. Weil’s English version of the protocol and its interpretation. This translated version of the Rorschach protocol of the Wolf Man is presented here for the first time. It may be significant that A. Weil (1956) published on deviational development, just after her husband’s Rorschach of the Wolf Man. According to Dr. A. Weil (personal communication), the Wolf Man suffered from a severe ego disturbance with regressive episodes of psychosis, consistent with a borderline condition (Blum, 1974; Mahler, 1971). Dr. F. Weil’s original interpretation is succeeded by two current interpretations. The first interpretation is by Roy Schafer, renowned as both
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