Psychoanalysis and Biography in Times of Crisis: Freud’s Late Correspondence with Marie Bonaparte
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.14.42182Keywords:
epistolary correspondence, biography, psychoanalysis, crisis, loss, Sigmund Freud, Marie BonaparteAbstract
The article addresses the topic of crisis, loss and resilience in Sigmund Freud’s late correspondence with Princess Marie Bonaparte. The correspondence, covering the years 1925-1939, will serve as the starting material for a broader question about the role of correspondence practices in the personal biography of Freud, for whom the 1920s and 1930s were marked, on the one hand, by the international success of the psychoanalytic movement, on the other hand, under the sign of a quick development of his terminal illness, the Anschluss, and the forced emigration to England related to the experience of loss and uprooting. The author argues that this correspondence is crucial to a better understanding of the psychoanalytic reflection of life writing, especially biography, as well as Freud’s intimate experience of exile, his personal experience of the loss of his psychoanalytic heritage and the destruction of Jewish life in Austria.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Agnieszka Sobolewska Alsberg
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