Suicides
in the Life of Sigmund Freud
David
Lester
Freud was one of the first physician-assisted
suicide on September 23, 1939, as his suffering from oral cancer intensified (see
www.drdavidlester.net:
Biographical Studies, BS 1991, page 51). I only just found out that suicides
were common among Freud’s colleagues and even a patient. This is revealed in an
article that I came across by Hamilton as I begin my review of research on
suicide in 2001.
Hamilton, J. W. (2001). Freud and the suicide of Pauline
Silberstein. Psychoanalytic Review, 89, 889-909.
Disappointingly, Hamilton gives us
little information about her suicide. It occurred on May 14, 1891, when Freud
was in the early stages of his career. He was still using hypnosis in his
psychotherapy and had not developed psychoanalysis yet.[1]
Pauline was 19, and she jumped from the third floor a building where she was
being taken.
Pauline was the wife of Freud’s
closest friend from adolescence, Eduard Silberstein, and they lived in Romania.
Freud’s correspondence with Silberstein has been published (in 1990). Pauline
had come to Viena for treatment with Freud, but there are no details known
about her problem or the treatment. Her suicide was reported in a Viennese newspaper.
According to the newspaper, she was in a building where people go for treatment,
and she threw herself over the balustrade at 4:40 pm. Her head was shattered,
and she died instantaneously.
We know nothing about how Freud felt
about the suicide of his patient who was the wife of his closest friend.
There are several suicides in Freud’s
life. Herbert Silberer, a member of Freud’s group, died by suicide in 1923 by hanging
after Freud threw him out of the group. A neurologist and friend, Nathan Weiss,
died by suicide on September 13, 1883, by handing in a Viennese public bath,
one month after his marriage. Victor Tausk died by suicide on July 3, 1919,
after Freud told Helen Deutsch to terminate her psychoanalysis of Tausk. Tausk
shot himself while also hanging himself a week before his wedding (see www.drdavidlester.net: Biographical
Studies, BS 1991, page 68).
It is noteworthy that these two
suicides both occurred when Freud disbarred them from his group.
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