Freud’s work known as the “Irma Injection Dream” is one of the foundational stones in the formation of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic method. This dream is the first one in which Freud examined a dream and its material in great detail, subjected it to free association, and systematized it extensively. The importance of this extensive systematization lies in the fact that it contributed to the later interpretation of dreams and to the conceptualization of the Oedipal complex. Considering that the Oedipal complex is the fundamental concept that makes psychoanalysis what it is, the importance of this dream becomes clearer. It functions almost as a template, a foundational program for the interpretation of dreams. The Irma dream serves as the basic map in establishing the principles for interpreting other dreams. It is the dream in which Freud deciphered himself as he interpreted his own associations and evaluated his own dream material.
Because this is the first dream to be systematized, its differences from other dreams include the following:
This dream determines how psychoanalysis approaches sexuality and how sexuality is handled within the doctrine. Although Hans-Jürgen Eysenck, a critic of psychoanalysis, described this dream in 1966 as simply the expression of a therapist’s failure in treatment and claimed that it contained no element of sexuality, it is nevertheless possible to clearly observe Freud’s latent erotic transfers and other unconscious conflicts. In other words, this dream constitutes the foundation of psychoanalysis and carries meanings far deeper than a straightforward evaluation of professional incompetence or ethical behavior.
Indeed, in this dream it is possible to see, in their most striking form, both erotic transfers and latent homosexual desires, as well as narcissistic–divine elements.
Furthermore, because Freud intended the Irma dream to be systematized, it has been subjected to an intense flow of commentary—just as Irma herself was subjected to an intense flow of meaning and projection due to Freud’s transferential investments in her. According to what is conveyed, it is clear that this dream is filled with projections stemming from Freud and Fliess, two individuals who examined their subjects through their respective specialties and desired to become stars in their fields. Anzieu, who discusses this dream in his book, cannot refrain from acting as a separator between Freud and Fliess. In Anzieu’s eyes, Irma—on whom Fliess repeatedly operated and penetrated symbolically—was sacrificed to Fliess’s professional ambitions, and Freud was left with the moral burden of this situation.
In Anzieu’s view, Freud appears before us as someone who has already accepted his passivity in the face of Fliess, submitting with a masochistic attitude. When evaluating this dream, one may ask whether Freud wrote the essay “A Child is Being Beaten” after Anna Freud’s case study or whether it emerged out of the already existing two-polar relationship between Freud and Fliess—God–servant, father–son, mother–son, male–female, sadist–masochist. This is a question worth considering. The nature of the relationship between Freud and Fliess in this dream seems rooted in negative Oedipal conflicts. When we look at the content of their correspondence and letters, the tone resembles lamentations to a lover—pleading for affection, seeking support—reaching a level that would even make their wives jealous, particularly Fliess’s wife.
The manner in which this dream is analyzed in Anzieu’s book—through his own participation—resembles the “trimethylamine formula” that Freud tried to ground in scientific terms as a representation of the Oedipal triangle. Fliess’s sadistic stance and his attempts to seduce and subordinate Freud, Freud’s masochistic desires and submissive position, and Anzieu’s occasional maternal stance trying to “hold” Freud against the sadistic other—together form this dynamic. Fliess’s medical interventions on Irma, entirely intellectualized yet symbolically sexual and castrative—such as cauterizing her nasal turbinates—represent the peak of symbolic meaning. That Freud occasionally sought treatment from Fliess for his own nasal discomfort, or asked for his intervention, is also connected with the wish for castration.
In individuals who harm themselves through cutting or other methods, we often see that the act symbolically corresponds to castration. Freud’s own wish in this context parallels such symbolic assaults. The question then arises: does this represent Freud’s “neurotic organization” as he defined himself, or does it reflect a more advanced borderline problematic? Freud’s dependence on Fliess is so extreme that Fliess’s permissions, prohibitions, and judgments hold life-or-death significance for him. Freud’s internal resources are insufficient to maintain self-regulation; thus, external authority—Fliess—becomes crucial. Fliess is the one who sets rules, forbids, and punishes—a castrating figure.
Freud’s constant need to choose idealized objects during this period seems almost like a search for a castrating figure. Fliess’s sadistic libidinal discharge met Freud’s masochistic desires, and the two men came together as a result of fulfilling one another’s psychological needs. They formed a “magnificent duo,” though the foundation of this duo was pathological processes—yet consciously presented as a scientific collaboration. Anyone who entered between them was symbolically “bled.” Emma Eckstein is among these victims. Under the guise of treating nasal turbinates, Fliess cauterized Emma’s turbinates, essentially castrating her clitoral region symbolically, since both he and Freud believed that nasal turbinates corresponded to genital organs.
Another function that Fliess served for Freud was to repair Freud’s narcissistic injuries and sensitivities, as Freud believed Fliess possessed a “magnificent self” that could help restore him. Freud, always trying to identify with the artists and scientists of his era, needed someone onto whom he could project this grandiose ideal. He once offered Breuer this role, but Breuer rejected it strongly. Because Fliess too needed someone onto whom he could reflect his own grandiose self, both men complemented each other's narcissistic needs by assigning each other these roles. Psychoanalytic theory was born out of this balance—very much like the relationship between the passive analysand lying on the couch and the analyst in the “sadistic,” penetrating, interpretive position. I describe this position as sadistic because interpretation is inherently erotic and penetrative.
Freud also considered his daughter Anna Freud as someone who could fulfill the role of the “magnificent other,” and he entrusted her to Lou Andreas-Salomé—an analyst, intellectual, and artist. Her non-heterosexual identity also provides insight into Freud’s choice of identification objects.
In the psychoanalytic explanation of masochism, the castration complex of childhood is considered responsible. The masochistic individual rejects sexual pleasure due to castration anxiety, experiencing guilt in its place. Their desire to be subjected to pain serves to alleviate this guilt. In this way, they symbolically castrate themselves. According to Freud, there is no separate masochistic instinct; sadism and masochism complement one another. Masochism is nothing more than sadistic aggression directed toward the self.
In his 1924 essay “The Economic Problem of Masochism,” Freud interpreted masochism in men as a regression that places the individual in the position of a woman. Masochistic fantasies involve meanings such as “being castrated, being subjected to sexual penetration, or giving birth.”
In his relationship with Fliess, Freud continuously took responsibility for Fliess’s mistakes—even when those mistakes endangered the lives of Freud’s patients. This demonstrates Freud’s desire to remain exposed to Fliess’s painful behaviors. In one of his letters to Fliess, Freud writes: “For me, you will remain the kind of person to whom one could entrust the life of any individual or family. Your benevolence is one of the reasons I love you.” Freud’s persistence in idealizing Fliess, despite repeated betrayals of trust and the catastrophic outcomes for patients, represents his desire to keep the sadistic object alive and present—thus fulfilling his own wish to be punished.
Moreover, as Freud himself wrote in 1924, only a person with a self capable of regressing into the passive feminine position can sustain masochism. The only person capable of fixing Freud into such a feminine role was Fliess. Psychoanalysis is therefore nothing other than the fertilized product of the pathological “alliance” between Fliess and Freud.
The biographer Didier Anzieu argued that Freud’s creative impulse was significantly shaped by his envy of fertile, creative women. According to Anzieu, Freud overcame this envy by identifying with these women at a psychic level. It can also be argued that Freud’s relationship with Fliess liberated the “woman within” Freud and further intensified his creativity. Thus, psychoanalysis becomes a product of feminine liberation. Ultimately, psychoanalysis is the sum of Freud’s search for a magnificent self-object, his desired feminine identity, his masochistic self, his attempt to merge with a sadistic other, and his impossible fantasy of a man giving birth. What emerges is not a triangular but a multi-sided, multi-layered, deeply wounded self—bloody like Irma and Emma Eckstein.
Psychoanalysis is the intellectualized satisfaction of the forbidden desires shared by Freud and Fliess, achieved through the method of psychoanalysis itself.
