Wolf-Man and Freud

His childhood had been characterized by a wavering between aggression and passivity; his young adulthood, by a struggle for masculinity. He was driven, so the psychological records demonstrate, by a narcissistic frustration and homosexual fear. Pursued by a dramatic multiplicity of fixations, he exhibited symptoms of compulsive love and obsessive behavior. He was overwhelmed, at times, by a super-pious religious humility that virtually insulated him from reality and life.

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The place was Europe. The time: that plush era before the First World War. There was only one place for this afflicted man to go. Vienna. There was only one doctor for him to see: Sigmund Freud.

The Wolf-Man (Basic Books; $10) by The WolfMan is, then, an invaluable autobiography written by Freud's famous case, the sensitive memoirs of a gen-

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By Abe C. Ravitz

tleman whose phobic reactions and treatment have been immortalized in psychoanalytic literature by the master himself. Called Wolf-Man by Freud as designation for the subject's earliest traumafear brought on by a picture of a predatory wolf the author writes with an acute perception of his own neuroses as well as an invaluable insight into Dr. Freud.

Now 83 years old, WolfMan, who wishes his anonymity to be preserved, resides somewhere in Central unique sociomedical study, Europe. To complete the also included in this volume are Freud's original case records, a foreword by Anna Freud, and supplementary chapters by other involved psychiatrists Ruth Mack Brunswick and Muriel Gardiner.

DESOLATE, suicidal, immersed in a nightmare world which Freud tried, successfully, to penetrate,

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Wolf-Man was son of an extremely wealthy Russian landowner. His sheltered childhood was invaded by series of incompetent, destructive governesses and a number of frightening. dreams. Part of Wolf-Man's terrifying problem was his sister Anna, who took der light in tormenting her younger brother. Another part was, apparently, a hypochondriacal mother and an alternately listless and mercurial father, a man se dom about.

Later in Wolf-Man's sad life is the horror of his wife's suicide at the time Hitler. entered Austria; and still later is the poverty he must experience. One for lows his fortunes from ther palmy, gracious European

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days of upper-class splendor to a life in a dingy apartment with the Nazi flag stormily flapping against the window.

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THE WOLF-PHOBIA is only a small part of a most intricate psychopathology. which includes fears of guilt: and incest and the shockshame syndrome involved in parent sexuality. Suffi-* cient to say, the complexity of Wolf-Man's illness challenged Freud's intellectual resources to the utmost

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But here is the deepest value of this absorbing vol ume: the patient and the doctor, their views of each other delivered both clini cally and in warmth, re spect, friendship. The book is history-social and cultural; it is clearly a landmark in psychological schol arship, a major contribution to our knowledge of mind and method. It is, in addition, an engaging literary experience not a mere curiosity for the serious general reader.