“David Cronenberg – Dangerous Method” or A Dangerous Method (if you are afraid of dogs)
Strangely, Freud’s outstanding biographer, Peter Gay minimized the role of dogs in both Freud’s material and practical life. In his book “Freud: A Life for Our Time” he devoted a single page to this topic. Gay writes about Freud’s attachment to his first dog, Lun-Yü: “From then on Freud and the successive chow chows, especially his Jofi, were inseparable. During analytic sessions, the dog quietly sat on the couch at the patients’ feet.”
The Freud family dogs:
There is no primary source for this story; Allan Showalter heard it from his teacher, Roy Grinker. Grinker worked with Freud between 1933 and 1935 on a new psychiatric program at a Chicago hospital.
Showalter writes about Freud and the “cursed” dogs:
“Freud and his daughter, Anna (who was also an analyst) both had dogs (Freud had a chow named Jofi and Anna had a large German Shepherd dog called Wolf) that ran out of the office through the shared waiting room all the way to the door and both barked loudly when someone rang the bell. The wolf dog immediately started sniffing Dr. Grinker’s genitals. Grinker reported that as a result, every time he entered Freud’s office, he was overcome by high levels of castration anxiety.”
Other:
“At Freud’s seminar, the ‘wolf dog’ once lay beside Grinker and barked, but Anna Freud told him that the dog was ‘perfectly safe.’ After a short pause, Anna continued that, naturally, when the dog was younger, it had a habit of disemboweling sheep. Then Anna repeated that the dog was now ‘perfectly safe.’ Finally, Anna advised Grinker to pull the dog’s tail so it would stop barking. Grinker decided not to follow this advice.
This is a somewhat skeptical story, including the fact that Anna Freud’s dog is described as a ‘wolf dog,’ when she actually had a German Shepherd dog called Wolf. And the psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, Freud’s early official biographer, experienced a similar encounter with Wolf, saying ‘The dog ran wildly at me and tore a piece out of my thigh.’ In response, Freud remarked that dogs instinctively sense and recognize those people who do not like them or are afraid of them.”
Freud’s dog as a timekeeper
The fact that Jofi constantly participated in therapy sessions as a spectator comes from multiple sources.
According to the London “Guardian” daily newspaper:
“Analysis became tiring for Freud because the cancer was painful, but Jofi sat there with him, the patient listener, but one eye on the clock, signaling the end of each session with abundant yawns and stretches, so Freud’s sessions never exceeded the lawful hour by even a minute.”
Psychologist Stanley Coren often writes about dog behavior and intelligence in the book “What Dogs Know” in an excerpt:
“Freud felt that dogs have a special sense that allows them to accurately judge the character of patients. Because of this, his favorite chow chow, Jofi, attended every therapy session; Freud admitted that he often relied on Jofi in assessing the mental state of the patient present. He also felt that the dog’s presence at the therapy sessions had a calming effect on his patients.
Jofi warned Him if there was any stress or tension found in the patient. Jofi lay relatively close to the calm patients, but stayed at the other end of the office if the patient was tense. Jofi helped the great psychoanalyst decide when to end a therapy session, Jofi got up and headed to the door exactly when the hour was up.”
Overzealous guard dog?
On one occasion Freud warned one of his patients to approach the chow-chow carefully. The patient paid no attention to the warning and comfortably walked over to Jofi, but like Anna, found a competitor in Freud’s dog: “I was angry at the end of the session because Jofi started to walk around and I felt that the professor was more interested in Jofi than in my story.”
And again, through Grinker, Showalter:
“Jofi lay at the end of the couch by Grinker's feet and, as dogs do, got up, went to the door, and scratched it with his paw to be let out. When Jofi scratched the door with his paw, Freud said ‘Jofi does not accept what you are saying.’ When the dog later came back into the room out of nowhere, Freud said ‘Jofi decided to give it another chance.’
And another story: On one occasion when Dr. Grinker was full of emotion, to quote Grinker’s exact words, ‘the damn dog jumped over my head,’ and Freud said ‘Jofi is so excited that he is already able to detect the source of anxiety.’”
This story sheds light on Freud’s “real” personality. Its title is an ironic reference to David Cronenberg’s Dangerous Method, which attempts to depict how psychoanalysis transformed from a mere theory into a practical therapeutic tool.
The 7th part of our series also holds plenty of interesting details, I recommend it to your attention!
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