Faculty of Arts

University of Maribor

Philosophy of psychoanalysis:

Philosophical view on Freuds case study of paranoia

Mentor: Student:

Prof. Dr. Boris Vejak Andjela Bolta

Maribor, 2016.
 Introduction

After concentrating on discovering the origin of the neuroses, and the hysterical and
obsessional neuroses in particular, Freud went on to look for a specic mechanism that might lie
at the root of nervous illness called paranoia. After Jung introduced him to autobiography of a
judge Daniel Schreber called Memoires of my nervous illness, Freud thought that study of this
case would be a great way for him to analyze and illustrate mechanisms through which paranoia
as a nervous illness functions. One of the reasons also was that in this case he wouldnt have to
falsify any case information in order to protect personal information about the patient and keep
doctor-patient confidentiality, since Schrebers Memoires had already been public.

By introducing Freuds psychoanalysis of this, popularly called, Schreber case I will

try to examine how psychoanalytical methods and interpretations are functioning and is
psychoanalysis actually reliable enough to be called scientific psychological theory.

Daniel Schrebers biographical and historical background

Serving the purpose of better understanding of Schreber case and Feuds study of it,
this chapter will provide some information about Schreber, his childhood, family, career and
hospitalizations.

Childhood and family

Relatively little is known about his childhood, which is an interesting fact since
childhoods of patients usually played very important role in Freuds psychoanalytical case
studies.

Daniel Paul Schreber was born in 1842 in Leipzig as one of five children of Pauline and
Moritz Schreber. His father Moritz was a renowned physician. Moritz Schreber wrote over thirty
books on child rearing, and founded an Orthopedic Institute. The aim of the elder Schrebers
teaching seems to have been to instill a sense of discipline in children in the first few years of
life. To that end, he prescribed elaborate methods by which children could be taught and
disciplined, and illustrated his works with pictures of devices, to be used to keep a child in the

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correct posture during various activities. The sadistic nature of the pedagogical regime, with its
grim fanaticism against childrens crude nature, (and masturbation, in particular), has led a
number of commentators to ask whether, and to what extent the fathers ideology is implicated in
sons etiology. Some have taken it for granted that the elder Schrebers methods constituted a
trauma, against which the delusional formation is a kind of attempt at recovery. Indeed, some
of the younger Schrebers hallucinations and delusions have clear correlates in the devices
championed by his father. Nonetheless, much of this is mere speculation, as the facts of
Schrebers early life are largely unknown. Some of the letters, written to Schreber by his sister
Anna, which were found in the hospital where he was institutionalized are providing us with the
information which describes Schreber household as oriented towards God, a god present at all
times, not merely in their daily prayers, but in all of the familys activities.1
The eldest of the Schreber children, Daniel Gustav, became head of the family in 1861 after the
fathers sudden death. He himself was likely to have been psychotic, and died by his own hand at
the age of 38, a few weeks after being promoted to a judge. He was unmarried, and died by a
gunshot wound, with melancholia ascribed as the cause of the event in obituaries.

Schreber was married, but he didnt mention his wife much in his memoires. We have
only little information about his marriage mostly based on the letters exchanged between
Schreber and his wife, but as far as we know his relationship with his wife didnt have much
relevance in his case.

Carrier

Schreber graduated from law school and was a highly respected judge. In 1884, just prior
to his first hospitalization, Schreber ran as a candidate for the Reichstag. Several commentators
have noted that this was likely to have been a rebellious move against a kind of father-figure,
namely, Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany, who at the time was dissolving the
Reichstag at will.2 In late 1893, after years of working as a judge at a relatively local level,
Schreber was informed of his promotion to President of the Senate. This is the major event
preceding his second and chronic breakdown. Whilst being highly qualified for the role, several
commentators have noted that Schrebers new colleagues were men a generation older than him,
and possible father figures.

First Hospitalization

1
Niederland, W. G. (1963). Further data and memorabilia pertaining to the Schreber case. International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 44, 201-207.
2
Ibid

3
 Schrebers rst illness began in 1884 and took the form of depressive hypochondriasis,
shortly after he had failed to win election to the Reichstag. At that time he was 42 years of age.
He was treated in Professor Flechsigs clinic in Leipzig. Flechsig was a world-famous
psychiatrist and neuroanatomist who discovered the dorsal spine-cerebellar fasciculus (later
named after him). After spending a few months in Flechsigs clinic, Schreber recovered
completely.3

Second Hospitalization

The second illness began some years later, in 1893, shortly after he was appointed to the
important post of President of the Appeal Court in Saxony; at that time he was 53 years old. He
suered from an acute hallucinatory delusion, and was again admitted to Flechsigs clinic; six
months later, he was transferred to another clinic in Dresden, which was run by Dr. Weber. He
stayed there for all of eight years, securing his own discharge by applying to the court in
Dresden. It was in the course of this procedure that Daniel Paul Schreber wrote his Memoirs of
my Nervous Illness in which he described in detail the progress of his illness, his delusion and his
hallucinations in order to support his application to the court for release: his intention was to
demonstrate to the court that he had become socially well-adjusted and that his illness was no
longer a sucient reason in law for continuing to keep him in a psychiatric institution. He was
accordingly freed in 1902, the judge observing that, though he was still insane, Schreber was no
longer a potential danger to himself or to other people. Daniel Paul Schreber retired to Dresden,
where he lived with his wife and their adopted daughter. Five years later, he had a relapse of his
depressive psychosis and had to be admitted to the psychiatric asylum in Leipzig, where he
remained until his death on 14 November 1911 the same year in which Freuds case study was
published.4

3
Quinodoz, J.- M. (2005). Reading Freud: A chronological exploration of Freud's writings. Hove [England}:
Routledge, 101-102.
4
Ibid, 102.

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Schrebers Memoires

As mentioned in previous chapter, Schreber wrote his Memoires during his second
hospitalization as an assessment to his application for releasement from asylum, but also for his
family and acquaintances in order to help them understand his illness and the things he was
struggling with.

His second illness started by him dreaming that his hypochondriasis came back. On one
of these occasions, he was revolted by the thought which occurred to him, between a state of
being awake and asleep, that after all it really must be very nice to be a woman submitting to
the act of copulation.5 He started suffering a severe onset of insomnia and voluntarily returned
to Flechsigs asylum, where he subsequently developed a return of the hypochondriasis and
displayed first signs of ideas of persecution.6

After hospitalization Schreber started to believe that there is a conspiracy to turn his body
into a womans through a process he called unmanning. Even at this early stage, Schreber did
not exclude the possibility that some external influences were at work to implant the idea in
him.7 Schreber started suffering sleeplessness soon after starting his position as a Senate
president (Senatsprsident). Many of his colleagues were men older than him and he was feeling
the pressure to impress them and that pressure was probably the main reason for insomnia. But at
that time he already felt the suspicion that there are some miracles working on his suffering. 8
Precisely who was behind these miracles became the subject of Schrebers laborious thought
process throughout his second illness as he persisted in his effort to discover the responsible
parties for his torments. As a result of this process, Schreber finally developed an elaborately
designed theological framework with which to justify his beliefs. Through his memoires
Flechsig, his first doctor was marked as a responsible party in conspiracy against him. Schreber
developed the idea that Flechsig is his persecutor, or, precisely his soul-murderer 9 He explains
that his relationship to Flechsig must have begun with their ancestors dating back to the 18th
century, at which time one of Flechsigs ancestors attempted soul murder against a distant
relative of his. Schreber, therefore, feels that his relationship to Flechsig carries on a legacy
which culminates in his persecution by Flechsigs soul. Throughout his memoirs, Schreber
remains undecided as to whether the actual Flechsig is or was ever intentionally involved in
his persecution. However, he conjectures that Flechsig may have lost a portion of his soul, which

5
Schreber, D. P. (1955). Memoirs of my nervous illness. (Trans. I. Macalpine & R. A. Hunter). New York, NY: New
York Review of Books. 36

6
Ibid
7
Ibid 63.
8
Ibid 64.
9
Ibid 55.

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in turn haunts him and explained that portion of Flechsigs soul could torment Schrebers person
without the actual Flechsig knowing. Schreber in his Memoires provided the complete
theological explanation how this could be possible.10 Schreber concludes that an ancestor of
Flechsig had, upon receiving such contact, abused his privilege, thereby placing the universe in
jeopardy by offending the Order of the World (p. 56). For Schreber comes to believe that,
upon Gods withdrawal from the human state of affairs, there had been developed, apart from
God, the Order of the World with its own laws and systems of justice. Schreber reasons that
there is no clash of interests between God and human beings as long as their relationship is in
accordance with the Order of the World. Since this relationship had been violated, all
creation11 is at risk and he suspects from the start that God Himself was a co-conspirator, if not
the instigator of the entire affair. Schreber thought that God has seen his nervousness illness as
a threat and therefore created the conspiracy to unman him by transforming him into a woman.
12
Unfortunately for God, the unmanning procedure had the opposite effect he intended. That
is, God, through divine rays, began the gradual filling of [Schrebers] body with nerves of
voluptuousness (female nerves) which had the reverse effect.13 Instead of Schreber being
abandoned through this process, he actually developed an increased power of attraction for
God. In turn, God was forced to develop other means to protect Himself, through either killing
Schreber or destroying his reason, for example, causing him sleeplessness. Schreber thought that
the world had come to an and that all the people he encounters are just divine rays as he called
them, which are sent by God just as another way to torment him. In the third stage of his illness
Schreber got to believe he can save the world by reconciling God and Order of the World
through the process of unmanning, by this he would procreate new race of man. Behind this,
as behind every Schrebers belief there is actually fascinatingly coherent and detailed
explanation written in his Memoires. After realizing that he could save the world by his
unmanning, he started to see it as a duty. He thought that his transformation into a woman is
beyond his choice, since it would save the world. 14 He found a meaning in his suffering:
Nothing less than the salvation of the universe. In the meantime, he took to various devices in
order to speed up the process of unmanning, such as picturing himself as a female in his
minds eye and wearing female adornments. 15

By 1899, Schrebers third doctor- Dr. Weber reported that his condition had significantly
improved. It was at this time, incidentally, that Schreber first learned he had been temporarily
placed under tutelage as early as 1895, and so approached the authorities demanding a decision
as to whether the temporary tutelage was to be made permanent or whether it could be

10
Ibid 46.
11
Ibid 60.
12
ibid 99.
13
Ibid 99.
14
Ibid 184.
15
Ibid 180.

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rescinded16. In 1900, Schreber began to write his memoirs while beginning the process of
achieving his legal independence. In 1902, Schreber succeeded in having his tutelage rescinded
in the Court of Appeal, and, subsequently, in March of 1903, he left the asylum to be with his
wife until her death. So, according to the memoirs, goes the story of one Daniel Paul Schrebers
nervous illness.

Freuds interpretation of Schrebers Memoires as a case study of paranoia

Before being introduced to Schrebers Memoires, Freud had already been familiar with
cases of paranoia. He decided to use Schrebers autobiography as a case to be analyzed in order
to explain mechanisms of paranoia to the psychiatric community.

Before introducing Freuds study of Schrebers case, it would be good to point out his
views on paranoia before being introduced to Schrebers Memoires. In his correspondence with
Flies in 1895, eight years before publication of memoires, he defined paranoia as pathological
mode of defense. 17 When patients have some physical disposition which they cannot accept or
tolerate, one of the ways they defend themselves is by becoming paranoic. Also, in some writing
we can find that not long before reading Schrebers autobiography, Freud had come to a
conclusion that paranoia and revulsion against homosexuality as personal disposition are
linked.18 Main mechanism through which paranoia functions is projection.

Schrebers Memoires served Freud to develop a thorough theory of mechanisms of

paranoia. He believed that Schreber had latent homosexual desires which through the mechanism
of projection led him to paranoia. In essay about Schrebers case Freud explains this mechanism
as a process through which "an internal perception is suppressed, and, instead, its content, after
undergoing a certain kind of distortion, enters consciousness in the form of an external
perception".19 Freud argues that in Schrebers case (as in every other case of paranoia linked to
homosexuality) there are some homosexual desires which Schreber himself feels revulsion
against. Projection process in which suppressing of internal perception distorts into an external
perception is illustrated like this:

I (a man), love him (a man).

I do not love him, I hate him.

16
Ibid 5.
17
Chabot B, (1982), Freud on Schreber: Psychoanalytic Theory and the Critical Act, University of Massachusetts
Press, Massachusetts, 35.
18
Ibid
19
Ibid 36.

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He hates me

I do not love him, I hate him, because he persecutes me. 20

First statement represents the feeling, or psychical disposition which subject cannot
accept and feels the need to suppress it. He suppresses it by reversing the verb to love into the
verb to hate. After that, subject reverses subject and object and in that way we get the
statement He hates me. Next, he projects this proposition into external world, or, better said
into consciousness, since, as Freud explains, this process is subconscious. The entire process
transforms subjects unacceptable internal desires into their opposite and locates them outside of
the subject. In that way we get the statement I do not love him, I hate him, because he
persecutes me (hates me).

In Schrebers example, Freud believes that he transformed his latent homosexual desires
towards Fleshing into believe that Fleshing is persecuting him. It is important to say, that
Schrebers process of paranoia and his homosexuality didnt become with him having feelings to
Fleshing. As mentioned before, Schreber had thought about how it must be nice to be women
submitting to the act of copulation. Schreber had homosexual dispositions before, but Fleshing
was maybe first man that evokes some subconscious homosexual feelings in him.

Freud finds Schrebers latent homosexuality as the root of his illness and he goes on to
provide further evidence in favor of his argument. For example, he notices that Schrebers illness
at Flechsigs asylum took a turn for the worse when his wife went on vacation, thereby leaving
him unprotected against the attractive power of the men about him21 Why then does Schreber
go on to create an elaborate theological explanation for his suffering in which God becomes the
primary persecutor, as well as his salvation? Freud argues that it was impossible for Schreber to
become reconciled to playing the part of a female wanton towards his physician, 22 and thus the
role of Fleshing became replaced by God, who called up no such resistance on the part of his
ego 23 Through his idea of God as the recipient of his soul-voluptuousness, Schreber is able to
turn what might otherwise be viewed as a disgrace into a great cosmic chain of events . . .
instrumental in the re-creation of humanity after its extinction 24Further, by his idea of creating
a new race of men,25 Schreber was also able to live out his fantasy of bearing children, which
he was incapable of doing with his wife. Therefore, says Freud, Schrebers ego found

20
Ibid 36.
21
Ibid 44.
22
Freud, S (1911), Psychoanalytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia, The Hogarth Press,
London, 1958, 48.
23
Ibid 48.
24
Ibid 48.
25
Ibid 49.

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compensation in his megalomania, while his feminine wish-fantasy gained its ascendancy and
became acceptable. 26 Finally, the struggle and the illness could cease.27

Freud also took this interpretation a step further by suggesting that, behind the figures of
God and Fleshing, Schreber held repressed homosexual feelings toward other persons whom he
had loved; namely, his father and brother, respectively.28 Freud supports this contention in
various ways. For example, he argues that Schrebers vision of the sun, which he identifies with
God, is a symbol for the father, and so reveals a father complex. That is, his fathers most
dreaded threat, castration, actually provided material for his wish-fantasy (at first resisted but
later accepted) of being transformed into a woman.29 In his theory of paranoia, Freud portrays
the paranoid schizophrenic as fixated at the stage of narcissism, between the stages of auto-
eroticism and object-love, in the development of the libido. The paranoid schizophrenic,
according to Freud, experiences a regression to this stage of narcissism wherein the person
withdraws his or her libidinal cathexis from the world. In fact, Freud argues that the formation
of delusions, the symptom of paranoid schizophrenia by which we recognize its pathology, is in
reality an attempt at recovery, a process of reconstruction.30 In the case of Schreber, Freud
recognizes the withdrawal of libidinal cathexis in Schrebers experience of the end of the
world, which he interprets as the projection of his inner catastrophe; for his subjective world has
come to an end since he had withdrawn his love from it.31 It follows that Schrebers attempt to
save the world is truly an attempt to return his love to the world.

Problems with Freuds interpretation

After reading the richly complex and textured memoir of Schreber, one is likely to feel
somewhat disappointed by Freuds treatment of the case. In reading Freuds essay, one does not
get the feel of a continuous, cohesive whole, such as with his case study of Rat Man or Wolf
Man, for example. Freud leaves many loose ends untied, although he admits his treatment of
Schrebers memoirs is indeed limited in scope. Freud scratches the surface of the memoirs just
enough to provide support for his theory of paranoia and leaves it behind. It seems like Freud
didnt take in considerations Schrebers memoires as a whole, but he abstracted certain parts of it
which he found adequate for confirming his, already made, theory of paranoia.

26
Ibid 49

27
Ibid 49
28
Ibid 50
29
Ibid 54
30
Ibid 57
31
Ibid 57

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 Freud presented his psychoanalysis as, with no doubt, scientific theory. He even regarded
himself as the last in the line of heroic scientific figures that changed our very concept of human
nature. As he wrote in his Introductory lessons to psychoanalysis:

Of course, the progress of science will by its very nature correct popular misunderstandings of
how the world works, and occasionally reveal surprising, even unpleasant, truths about
ourselves. Sigmund Freud famously situated himself in line with Copernicus, who taught us that
Earth is not at the center of the universe, and Darwin, who taught us that humans are creatures of
nature just like any other. For Freud, the third blow against 'human megalomania' was his
discovery (as he claimed it was) that conscious experience, thought, and action was determined
by unconscious, primitive drives:

Human megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow from the
psychological research of the present time which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even
master in its own house, but must content itself with scanty information of what is going on
unconsciously in the mind...32

In other words, Freud didnt just believe that psychoanalysis is a scientific theory, but he also
lined himself with Copernicus and Darwin and considered psychoanalysis to be one of three
most important steps in history of science and ways how we perceive human nature.

If we want to examine should psychoanalyses really be considered as a scientific theory

in ways which, for example, psychics and mathematic are, we should start by examining its
methods. If we look at Freuds analyses of Schrebers Memoires, we can see how Freud took one
example of mental illness and scratched only its surface in order to derive arguments in favor of
his theory. We cannot deny that at first reading, and maybe even second, Freuds explanation of
Schrebers state seems very coherent and logical, and I will dare to say intuitive, too. One of the
problems that we can find here is that there could be at least a dozen interpretations of Schrebers
case made and all of them could be equally coherent, intuitive and logical. Also, Freuds
interpretation of Schrebers case could be applied to many different cases, in other words, by
using psychoanalytical methods we could easily interpret some behavior as paranoia. From what
we can see in Freuds analysis of Schrebers Memoires, Freud derived from it only what he
found useful for supporting his theory, but is this the way how one scientific theory should be
confirmed and verified?

Scientific theories should not be supported and approved by finding many examples
which support them, but completely opposite. History of science has proven that there can be
thousands of examples that are confirming one theory, but a single counterexample would be
enough to disclaim the whole theory. What Freud did with Schreber case was using it as an

32
Freud, S. (1961-1963), Introductory lessons of psychoanalysis In J. Strachey (Ed.) , The standard edition of the
complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 16-17) London, Hogarth Press, (Original work published in
1915-1917)

10
example that works in favor of his theory of paranoia and this is the usual method of
psychoanalysis. Not only that there could be many psychological interpretations of Schrebers
case that would lead us to completely different conclusions and by criteria of coherence and
ituitivity be as relevant as Freuds interpretation, but also Freuds interpretation doesnt provide
any scientific evidence. It is just an interpretation.

What psychoanalytical theory lacks in order to be rational and scientific is falsifiability.

As famous philosopher of science, Karl Popper argued, one scientific theory is good if it is
falsifiable.33 What does that mean? If a theory is falsifiable it means that there are many different
ways to (empirically) test it. By these criteria, psychoanalysis is completely non-falsifiable.
Freud used Schrebers case to prove and confirm his theory of paranoia, and by Poppers criteria
it would be waste of time, because no matter how many examples Freud would collect in favor
of his theory only one counterexample would disclaim his theory. The way in which Freud
should have present and construct his theory in order to be scientific would be to make it
falsifiable, which he didnt do. There are no ways to put his theory of paranoia on a test in order
to verify it. Popper also claimed that each scientific theory is consisted of many hypotheses and
that if only one hypothesis is wrong the whole theory could be proven wrong, and the way to test
scientific theory is to test its hypothesis.34 We can agree that Freuds theory consists of
hypothesis, but, again, all hypotheses that are constructing Freuds theory of paranoia are not
falsifiable, therefore the entire theory is not falsifiable. Freud uses the same psychoanalytic
method not only in Schrebers case, but also in most of his case studies. The entire theory of
psychoanalysis is based on similar methods - particular cases which are analyzed and presented
as examples of some kind of nervous illness or psychological mechanism. Everything that
constructs psychoanalytical theory is based on thousands of examples which are proving the
theory, but not having any examples of putting theory on any kind of falsification tests. This is
the reason why Popper would call psychoanalysis pseudo-science.

Even if Freuds study of Schrebers Memoires really seems coherent, logical and
intuitive, by scientific criteria it is only on the level of interpretation and as non-falsifiable,
doesnt have any scientific value. Therefore, we can say that, by the same criteria that
ontological topics are sorted into the field of metaphysics, psychoanalysis could be sorted into
the field of metapsychology.

33
Popper, K. ( 1935) The logic of scientific discovery, Rutledge classics, New York
34
Ibid

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REFERENCES

Chabot B, (1982), Freud on Schreber: Psychoanalytic Theory and the Critical Act, University of
Massachusetts Press, Massachusetts, 35.

Freud, S. (1961-1963), Introductory lessons of psychoanalysis In J. Strachey (Ed.), The standard

edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 16-17) London, Hogarth
Press, (Original work published in 1915-1917)

Freud, S. (1909b, 1911, 1918/1963). Three case histories. New York: Collier.

Freud, S (1958), Psychoanalytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia,

The Hogarth Press, London, (Original work published in 1911)

Niederland, W. G. (1963). Further data and memorabilia pertaining to the Schreber case.
International Journal of Psychoanalysis

Popper, K. ( 1935) The logic of scientific discovery, Rutledge classics, New York

Schreber, D. P.(1955). Memoirs of my nervous illness. (Trans. I. Macalpine & R. A. Hunter). New
York, NY: New York Review of Books

Quinodoz, J.- M. (2005). Reading Freud: A chronological exploration of Freud's writings. Hove
[England}: Routledge

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