F R E U D AND T H E GREEKS: A STUDY OF T H E INFLUENCE O F

CLASSICAL GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

UPON T H E DEVELOPMENT O F FREUDIAN THOUGHT
GARFIELD TOURNEY
Lafayette clinic and W a y n e State Univserity School of Medicine

The ashes of Freud repose in one of his favorite Grecian urns a t the Golden
Green Crematorium in London.’ This final resting place of Freud distinctly repre-
sents his great affinity for the culture and civilization of classical Greece. The
student of Freud readily recognizes the great frequency with which he makes
references to Greek mythology, philosophy and history, utilizing such concepts to
further our understanding of psychoanalytic principles and their application to the
neurotic patient, but moreover to literature, art, religion and other cultural phe-
nomena. Often Greek ideas are utilized in the form of metaphor and analogy to
illustrate some premise of psychoanalytic thought. More significantly, Greek terms
have been applied as designations for his scientific concepts and hypotheses, such
as the Oedipus complex, narcissism and his final instinct theory of Eros and death
instinct, Thanatos. Furthermore, there is a marked resemblance of a number of
his theories to Greek thinking such as the problem of opposites in conflict, the
nature of dreams, and the importance of sexuality as a motivating force. FinaIIy,
Freud has personally identified himself with the most tragic of Greek heroes, Oedi-
pus, and such an identification may further enlighten us about the personality of
the founder of psychoanalysis.
In this presentation the development of Freud’s interest in the classical anti-
quity of the Greeks, his use of Greek concepts and their application as designations
of his scientific hypotheses, the resemblance between Freud’s theories and certain
Greek concepts, and his identification with Oedipus will be discussed. One must
ask to what extent was Freud both indirectly and directly influenced by Greek
thought in the promulgation of his many ideas. Such relations will be defined where-
ever possible.

DEVELOPMENT OF FREUD’SINTEREST IN THE GREEKS

It was impossible for any one developing in the intellectual climate of Western
Europe in the nineteenth century not to have been influenced, in one way or another,
by the ancient Greeks.2 Writers such as Schiller and Goethe, had a great influence
upon Freud, and he was familiar with their works dealing with Greek subjects, such
as Goethe’s Iphigenia and Schiller’s The Gods of Greece. The Naturphil~sophie,~
expounded by Schelling and influenced by Greek sources, was also pioneered by
Goethe and well exemplified by Goethe’s essay “On Nature”,* in which nature is
revealed as a beautiful and bountiful mother who permits her favorite children to
‘For an illustration of the Grecian urn, see International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 37: 112, 1956.
*Butler, E. M.: The Tyranny of Greece Over Germany, Cambridge, University Press, 1935.
3For the relations between Naturphilosophie and Freud see Bernfeld, S.: “Freud‘s Earliest
Theories and the School of Helmholtz” in Yearbook of Psychoanalysis, Vol. I, New York, Inter-
national Universities Press, 1945, pp. 31-47; Jones, E.: The f i f e and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. I,
New York, Basic Books, 1953, pp. 42-43; Ramzy, I.: “From Aristotle t o Freud”, Bulletin of the
Menninger Clinic, 20: 112-123, 1966.
‘Goethe, .J. W. von: “Fragment uber die Natur”, Samtliche Werke, Vol. XXXIX, Stuttgart und
Berlin. (First Vol., 1902).

67
68 GARFIELD TOURNEY

explore her secrets, for whom one must give credit, but also blame, for everything.
Freud, upon hearing a public recitation of this essay in 1873, decided upon medicine
as his chosen profession.6
As part of his early education, Freud learned the Greek and Latin languages
and read Homer, the Greek dramatists and Vergil in the original versions.6 During
his youth he wrote his diary in Greek.’ Alexander the Great and Hannibal were his
childhood heroes.* In his Gymnasium curriculum the main emphasis was Latin,
Greek, and ancient history. The tragedies of Sophocles were among his favorite
works.9 He later wrote that the Gymnasium had given him, “. . . my first glimpse of
an extinct civilization (which in my case was to bring me as much consolation as
anything else in the struggles for life).”1° At the time of his graduation in 1873,
when Freud was 17 years old, he was asked t o translate from the “Oedipus Rex”
of Sophocles as part of his final examination.“ I n 1886 he attended a performance
of this Greek tragedy in Paris with Mounet-Sully in the title role and was deeply
irnpressed.l2 But it was in 1897, after the death of his father, that he began to realize
the emotional significance of this work during the period of his own self ana1y~is.I~
During 1874-76 while at the University of Vienna, Freud attended Franz
Brentano’s lectures on the reading of philosophical works, logic, and the philosophy
of Ari~tot1e.l~Freud has not recorded the impact these courses had upon him, nor
has he made references to Brentano’s Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte in
which the problem of unconscious mental processes was d i s c s u ~ e d .Although
~~ not
an active follower of Brentano, the young Freud was undoubtedly influenced by
some of his ideas.16
Bretano must have thought well of Freud, for in 1879 he recommended Freud
to Theodor Gomperz, as a translator for one of the volumes of the German edition
of the works of John Stuart Mill, which Gomperz was editing.” As Bernfeld’*
points out, we have no clue to the understanding of Brentano’s interest in Freud,
Vones: loc. Cit., p. 28.
OIbid.,p. 20, 174.
‘Jones, E.: The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 11,New York, Basic Books, 1955, p. 24.
8Jones, E.: The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. I, pp. 18, 23.
sibid., p. 20.
T r e u d , S..: “Some Reflections on Schoolboy Psychology (1914)”, in fhndard Edition of the C o w
plete Psychologzeal Works, (Henceforth referred to as Standard Edition), Vol. XIII, London, Hogarth
Press, 1955, p. 241.
”Jones; loc. at., p. 20.
’%id., p. 177.
l3lbid., pp. 304-308.
”Merlin, P.: “Brentano and Freud”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 6: 375-377, 1945; Merlin,
P.: “Brentano and Freud-A Sequel”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 10: 451, 1949; Bernfeld, S.:
“Sigmund Freud, M.D., 1882-1885”, in Yearbook of Psychoanalysis, Vol. VIII, New York, Interna-
tional Universities Press, 1953, pp. 1438. The following list includes Brentano’s classes that Freud
attended as given by Bernfeld: Winter Semester 1874-75, Reading of Philosophical Works; Summer
Semester 1875, Logic, Reading Seminar; Winter Semester 1875-76, Reading of Philosophical Works;
Summer Semester 1876, Philosophy of Aristotle.
I6Boring, E. G.: A History of Experimental Psychology, New York, Appleton-Century-Crafts,
1950, pp. 356-8.
I0Bernfeld, S. : “Freud’s Scientific Beginnings”, in Yearbook of Psychoanalysis, Vol. VI, New
York, International Universities Press, 1951, pp. 24-50.
”&d. In 1932, H. Gomperz, who was writing a biography of his father, wrote to Freud inquiring
about the circumstances leading to Freud’s being asked to translate the works by Mill. Freud replied:
“I know that I was recommended t o your father by Franz Brentano. Your father, at a party . . .
mentioned that he was looking for a translater, and Brentano, whose student I then was or had been
-
at a still earlier time, named my name.” (Italics Freud) cited by Merlin, P.: loc. cit., p. 375.
I8Bernfeld: Zoc. cit., p. 46.
 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 69

and one wonders to what extent Freud had excelled in Bretano’s seminars other than
demonstrating a remarkable linguistic ability. It is interesting to note that Joseph
Breuer was Brentano’s personal physician, and several mutual friendships occurred ,
which involved Fleischl, Exner and Paneth.l9 Such friends may have helped Freud
obtain the assignment as translator. Heinrich Gomperzzo the son of Theodor,
commented about Freud’s relation with Brentano: “It is in itself not quite insig-
nificant that Freud, before his twenty-third year, was a student of Brentano’s,
moreover, a student with whom Breuer was acquainted personally, and who, ac-
cordingly, must have been near to him in some way or other. We ought to remember
that Freud has always opposed the more or less materialistic medicine of his time,
stressing the relative independence of the ‘psychic apparatus’ from the physical,
and in this connection maintained that it is possible to influence psychical maladies
psychically. May we speak, perhaps, of a certain after effect of the influence of a
psychologist who, more than any other, distinguished between ‘physical’ and
‘psychic’phenomena and erected his whole doctrine on the basis of this distinction?”
In his writings Freud made several minor references to Brentano, referring to
Brentano’s famous riddle of logic in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.21
Freud translated for Theodor Goinperz Mill’s extended review of Grote’s
Pluto and the Other Companions of Sokrates as well as several short papers.22 Freud
became acquainted with Plato’s theory of reminiscence in Mill’s sympathetic pre-
~ ~ theory was to remain a facinating one for Freud, and it is likely
s e n t a t i ~ n .This
related to Freud’s concept of a racial unconscious and phylogenetic inheritance.
Freud made mention of Plato in his works and repeatedly referred to the Sym-
p o ~ i u m .Bernfeld=
~~ remarks, “In a conversation about Plato, Freud admitted in
1933, that his knowledge of Plato’s philosophy was very fragmentary and that he
had been greatly impressed by his theory of anamnesis and that he had, at one time,
given it a great deal of thought”. Mill’s Plato may well have been the principle
source for Freud’s “fragmentary knowledge” of Plato.
lglbid., . 48.
20Cited %yMerlin, P.: bc. cit., p. 375-6.
Vreud, 5. : Standard Edition, $01. VIII, London, Hogarth Press, 1960, pp. 31, 237-8.
**Mill,J. S.: “uber Frauenemanicipation”, “Plato”, “Arbeiterfrage”, “Socialismus”, von John
Stuart Mill, tfbersetzt von Sigmund Freud, in John Stuart Mills’ Gesammelte Werke. Autarisierte
Uebeursetzung unter Redaktion von. Professor Df. Theodor Gompera. Vermischte Schhften 111,
Zwolften Bond. Fues’s Verlag (R. Reisland), Leipzig, 1880.
230ther ideas conveyed in Mill’s essay express ideas markedly similar to some of Freud’s own
concepts. Mill discusses the doctrine of Hedomsm which states that pleasure and the absence of pain
are the ends of morality, and that according to Plato, pain and leasure are the “Measuring Art” of
things, which may relate to Freud’s Pleasure - Pain principle. h i l l also refers to Plato’s trichotomy
of mind. “The human mind is analyzed into the celebrated three elements, Reason, Spirit or Passion,
and Appetite. The just mind is that in which each of the three keeps its proper place; in which Reason
governs, Passion makes itself the aid and instrument Of Reason, and the two combined keep Appetite
in a state of willing subjection”. (p. 296) One readdy equates Ego with Reason, Super-ego .mth
Spirit, and Id with Appetite. Other ideas expressed here which may be relevant are the exemplifica-
tion and application of the dialectic art in the Somatic method (compare with psychoanalytic therapy),
the morality of the Re ublic, the concept of Necessity as the capricious portion of the agencies of
nature, the famous simie of the cave, and Plato’s exaltation of Knowledge. Mill also refers to Empe-
docles and the four elements, but makes no mention of his concepts of Love and Strife, which bear a
relationshi to Freud’s final instinct theory. (See below). Interestingly enough, Mill makes no
mention o f the Symposium, which is the Platonic dialogue most frequently referred to by Freud.
Mill, J. S.: “Plato” (Edinburgh Review, April, 1866), reprinted in Dissertations and Discuasium,
Vol. JV, New York, Henr Holt, 1874, p . 227-331.
Wreud, S.: “Three &says on Sexuahy” (1905), in standard Edition, Vol. VII, London, Hogarth
Press, 1953, p. 136, Freud, S.: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), &andard Edition, Vol. XVIII,
1955, pp. 57-8.
%ernfeld, S.: bc. dt., p. 49.
 70 GARFIELD TOURNEY

Freud continued to have an intellectual and personal relationship with Theodor

Gomperz and his family. He had Elise Gomperz, the wife of Theodor, as a patient,
and through her friendship she appealed to the Minister of Education on behalf of
Freud’s application for a professorship a t the University in 1901.26 Freud later
wrote to Frau Gomperz, expressing thanks for a copy of her husband’s paper on
Plato.*i Freud recalled his experience during his youth when he “was allowed for the
first time to exchange a few words with one of the great men in the realm of thought.
It was soon after this that I heard from him the first remarks about the role played
by dreams in the psychic life of primitive men-something th a t has preoccupied me
so intensively ever since”. In 1866 Gomperz had written a work entitled T h e Inter-
pretation of Dreams and Magic2* which reviewcd the attitudes of primitives and the
ancients toward dreams, and proved to be a valuable source for Freud in his his-
torical review of dream interpretation.
Freud’s respect for Theodor Gomperz was demonstrated further in his response
in 1907 to the antiquary H i n t e r b ~ g e rwho
, ~ ~asked Freud to name “ten good books”.
As Freud remarked in his reply, Hinterberger had not asked for the “ten greatest
I
I
books” and so he named ten such “good” books that came to mind without much
reflection. Among these ten works was Gomperz’ Greek Thinkers, A History of
Ancient P h i l o ~ o p h y . Freud
~~ does not refer to the reading or the utilization of this
work as source material, but one can presume, on the basis of what is known of
Freud’s voracious reading habits, that if he mentioned a work so highly, he must
have been very familiar with it.
Heinrich Gomperz, who followed his father’s profession and became a pro-
fessor of philosophy in Vienna, was an intellectual associate of Freud’s. Freud dis-
cussed Platonic philosophy with him a t the time of the writing of Beyond the Pleasure
Principle, and Gomperz explained to Freud the Indian origin of some of Plato’s
ideas about bisexuality as expressed in the S y m p ~ s i u m . ~Gomperz
‘ demonstrated
his respect for Freud in a paper entitled “Psychological Comments on Greek Philoso-
phers” which appeared in the psychoanalytic journal, Imago, in 1924.32 Freud un-
doubtedly had some acquaintance with this article, as he carefully supervised the
publication of this journal.
Freud had always been deeply impressed by the study of ancient history, and
took particular delight in the archeological discoveries of the time. I n the FIiess
letters he expresses his enthusiasm for the discoveries of Schliemann at Troy, Evans
discovery of Knossos in Crete, and the excavations of Pompeii. At this period when
he was so intrigued by the study of the childhood experiences of himself and his
patients, he also turned to the prehistory of civilizatioii which Rousseau called “the
childhood of man”, a concept also held b y many of the German romantic poets and

26Freud, E. L. (Ed.): Letters of Sigmund Freud, N e w York, Basic Books, 1960. Letters 117-8,
pp. 241-244.
27Zbid.: Letter 165, p. 303.
28Gomperz, T.: Traumdeutung und Zauberei, Vienna., 1866.
“Freud, E. L. (Ed.): loc. cif., Letter 135, p p . 268-270.
30Gomperz,T.: Greek Thinkers, A History of Ancient Philosophy, 1V Vols., London, John Murray,
1906-1912.
d , “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, Standard Edition. Vol. X V I I I , p. 58.
3 L F r e ~S.:
3 2 G ~ m p e rH.
~ ,: “Psychologisehe Beobachtungen an griechischen Philosophen”, Imago, 10:
1-92, 1924.
 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 71

phil0sophers.3~ Freud wrote to Fliess in 1899: “I have bought myself Schliemann’s

Ilios and enjoyed the account of his childhood. The man found happiness in finding
Priam’s treasure, because happiness comes only from fulfilment of a childhood
The personality and life of Schliemann were of great interest to Freud in
that Schliemann’s great work began with a childhood wish, the phantasy of dis-
covering a ‘(real” Troy after he had devoured Homer. Freud later emphasized the
basis of mythology in a historical reality,35and his study of Schliemann undoubtedly
played a part in this formulation, as well as serving as a confirmation of his hy-
pothesis.
Freud’s fascination of Sir Arthur Evans’ excavations a t Knossos in Crete, pro-
voked a letter to Fleiss in 1901 wherein he wrote: (‘Have you read that the English
have excavated an old palace in Crete (Knossos) which they declare to be the original
labyrinth of Minos? Zeus seems originally to have been a bull. The god of our
fathers, before the sublimation instigated by the Persians took place, was worshipped
as a bull. That provides for all sorts of thoughts which it is not yet time to get down
on paper. . . .’’36
Burckhardt’s History of Greek Civilization was one of Freud’s favorite historical
studies, and it provided him with certain parallels with his studies of hysteria and
other neuroses. Again he wrote to Fliess of his interest in 1899: “For relaxation I
am reading Burckhardt’s History of Greek Civilization, which is providing me with
unexpected parallels. My predilection for the prehistoric in all its human forms
remains the same. . . . ’ 1 3 ? A later letter declared, “I am deep in Burckhardt’s History
of Greek Cicilizati~n”.~~
A life-time friendship existed between Freud and Emmanuel Lowy,39 professor
of archeology in Rome and Vienna. Freud saw him regularly each year, at which
time he was greatly intrigued by discussions of archeological discoveries and their
relationship to certain psychoanalytic principles.
Freud had a great passion for collecting antiquities, a hobby which Jones called
his only e x t r a ~ a g a n c e .He
~ ~ began collecting antiques, usually Greek, Roman, and
Egyptian in 1896, and he frequently added to his collection, always obtaining addi-
tional specimens on his trips to Rome. In 1899, he wrote to Fliess: “The ancient
gods still exist, for I have bought one or two lately, among them a stone Janus,
who looks down on me with his two faces in a very superior f a ~ h i o n ” . He ~ ~ was
always very proud of his acquisitions, and would bring new specimens to the dinner
table in the evening, and then demonstrate and discuss them with the family.@In later
years his waiting and consulting rooms were cluttered with various antiquities-on
desks, tables and in cabinets.
Freud first visited Athens in 1904 when he was 48 years old, and he described
33Gladston, I.: “Freud and Romantic Medicine”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 30: 489-507,
1956.
34Freud, S.; The Origins of Psychoanalysis, p. 282.
3bFreud, S.: A General Zntroductim to Psychoanalysis, (1916-17), New York, Garden City, 1938,
p. 321; Freud, S., Moses a$ Monotheism, (1937) London, Hogarth Press, 1951, p. 114.
36Freud, S.: The Origzns of Psychoanalysas, p. 333.
”Ibid., p. 275.
38Jhd.. D. 276.
- ..-., r
~

39Ibid., p. 229.
4’IJones, E.: The L i f e and Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. I., p. 330.
41Freud, S.: loc. &., p. 286.
“Jones, E.: The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 11, p. 393.
72 GARFIELD TOURNEY

the Acropolis as surpassing any type of experience that he could imagine, having
brought to this experience many childhood wishes and a love of study of the ancient
Greeks.43 He later remarked to Marie Bonaparte that the amber-colored columns
on the Acropolis were the most beautiful things he had ever observed during his life
time.44 Late in his life, Freud revealed to us some interesting autobiographical facts
about this visit to the Acropolis in an open letter to Romain R ~ l l a n d .While ~ ~ on
the Acropolis, he speaks of this experience thus: “When I stood upon the Acropolis
and cast my eyes around upon the landscape, a remarkable thought suddenly entered
my mind: ‘So all this really does exist, just as we learnt a t school!’ ’ 1 4 ~ Freud was
overcome by a peculiar dissociation, a feeling of disbelief as if the Acropolis really
did not exist, while realizing consciously its reality. He then analyzed the basis of
this incredulity, “I could really not have imagined it possible that I should ever be
granted the sight of Athens with my own eyes - as is now indubitably the case”.47
How long he has passionately desired to visit this cradle of ancient civilization! Yet
he doubted the existence of the Acropolis earlier in his life? Freud then spoke of this
experience as a derealization. He relates the experience to his own childhood doubt
that he should never see Athens, which was closely related to the poverty and condi-
tions of his early life. The sense of guilt was associated with his having gotten so far,
having so greatly surpassed his father, having carried out the forbidden wish of his
childhood. “It was something to do with a child’s criticism of his father, with the
undervaluation which took the place of the overvaluation of earlier childhood. It
seems as though the essence of success was to have got further than one’s father, and
as though to excel one’s father were still something f ~ r b i d d e n ’ ’ The
. ~ ~ very motif of
Athens and the Acropolis demonstrated the son’s superiority over the father. Does
not this experience represent the tremendous and overwhelming emotional signi-
ficance the Greek culture had for Freud, as well as its profound intellectual stimulus
for him?
Freud repeatedly used Greek ideas as examples for his psychoanalytic concepts
in a metaphorical and poetical manner. He early mentions the physician being de-
pressed by the Sisypheon task in the treatment of hysteria149referring to the myth
of Sisyphus, who repeatedly endeavored to roll his rock up a steep cliff only to have
it roll down again. He clarifies the concept of the unconscious, its force and energy,
in a similar manner. “These wishes in our unconscious, ever on the alert and, so to
say, immortal, remind one of the legendary Titans, weighted down since primaeval
ages by the massive bulk of the mountains which were once hurled upon them by the
victorius gods and which are still shaken from time to time by the convulsion of
~ indestructibility of the unconscious was described in a simile
their l i m b ~ . ~ ’ 6The
of the ghosts in the underworld in the Odyssey, who awakened anew with the taste
of blood.61 Freud also described the logical connection by simultaneity in time con-
uIbid, p. 24.
uIbid.
‘Weud, S.: “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis” (1936), in Collected Papers, Vol. V,
London, Hogarth Press, 1950, pp. 302-312.
‘elbid., p. 304.
471bid.1pp. 306-7.
‘slbid., p. 311.
‘SBreuer, J. and Freud, S.: “Studies on Hysteria” (1895), in Standard Edition, Vol. II., London,
Hogarth Press, 1955, p. 263.
64Freud, S.: “The Interpretation of Dreams”, in standard Edition, Vol. V., p. 553.
Wrid.
 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 73

veyed in dreams and unconscious mental processes as being like a picture of the
school of Athens or of Parnassus with all the philosophers or poets of various ages
represented together.@
One of the means by which Freud often expressed his use of concepts derived
from antiquity was through the analogy between archeology and the psychoanalytic
process, emphasing that in analysis there must be an excavation of the buried (i.e.
repressed) past just as in archeology. With regard to his first full length analysis
of a case of hysteria, the case of Freulein Elizabeth von R., he remarked, l l . . . I
arrived at a procedure which I later developed into a regular method and employed
deliberately. This procedure was one of clearing away the pathogenic psychical
material layer by layer, and we liked to compare it with the technique of excavating
a buried In writing to Fliess in 1899, Freud spoke of his discovery of un-
conscious sexual phantasies in his patient E. “I can hardly bring myself to believe
it yet. It is as if Schliemann had dug up another Troy which had hitherto been
believed to be mythical.”64 In his report of the Dora Case, Freud again compared
himself with an archeologist, l l . . . like a conscientious archeologist, I have not
omitted to mention in each case where the authentic parts end and my constructions
begin”.56 In his study of Jensen’s Gradiva, Freud used the archeological analogy in
regard to P ~ m p e i iand
, ~ ~later compared its burial with repression, its preservation
with the unconscious and its excavation with psychoanaly~is.~~
Freud was very intrigued by the mythical relationships between Kronus,
Uranus, and Zeus and frequently utilized them to illustrate castration fear and the
son’s rebellion against the father. “The obscure information which is brought to
us by mythology and legend from the primaeval ages of human society gives an
unpleasing picture of the father’s despotic power and of ruthlessness with which he
made use of it. Kronus devoured his children, just as the wild boar devours the
sow’s litter, and Zeus emasculated his father and made himself ruler in his place.”6s
Freud points out that Kronus also castrated his father Uranus.69 This myth must
have deeply impressed Freud, and one wonders to what extent his concepts of the
totemic feast and primal horde psychology are derived from his acquaintance with
this myth. Certainly this myth afforded him with evidence for the existence of the
son’s rebellion against the primal father where the son does to the father what he
fears the father will do to him, mainly castration.
For Freud the myth represented the primaeval reality. The importance of
mythology for the understanding of psychoanalytic concepts, as well as a scientific
realization of the meaning of myths through psychoanalytic principles, was re-
peatedly stressed by Freud and by a number of his followers.60 In a letter to Fliess
6*Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 314; Freud, S.: “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”, (1915), in
Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, London, Hogarth Press, 1957, pp. 277-8.
HBruer, J. and Freud, S.: “Studies on Hystena” (1895), Standard Edition, Vol. 11, p. 139.
b*Freud,S.: Origins of Psychoanalysis, p. 305.
66Freud, S.: “A Case of Hysteria” (1905), Standard Edition, R. 12.
IeFreud, S.: “Delusions and Dreams in Jensen’s ‘Gradiva’ (1907), Standard Edition, Vol. IX,
p. 40.
67Freud, S.: “Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis (1909), Standard Edition, Vol. X,
London, Hogarth, 1955, pp. 176-7.
SsFreud, S.: “Inter retation of Dreams”, Standard Edition, Vol. IV, p. 256.
I9Freud, S.: “The $uestions of Lay Analysis” (1926), in Standard Edition, Vol. XX, pp. 211-212.
SOAbraham, K.: “Dreams and Myths: A Study in Folk Psychology”, in Clinical Papers and
Essays in Psychoanalysis, New York, Basic Books, 1955, pp. 153-209, Rank, 0.: Myth of the Birth
of the Hero, New York, Robert Brunner, 1952.
74 GARFIELD TOURNEY

in 1897, Freud wrote of the enormous significance of mythology in describing

“endopsychic myths” as projections of the psychical apparatus outwards. “Im-
mortality, retribution, the world after death, are all reflections of our inner psyche . . .
psycho-mythology.”61 Freud compared myths and dream symbols and believed
that one could understand myths through a knowledge of infantile sexual theories
and consciously remembered mental impulses of childhood.62 Myths were treated
as distorted vestiges of the wishful phantasies of early cultural groups, being ‘(secular
dreams of youthful humanity. ” 6 3 Through mythology and folklore Freud believed
one gained a greater understanding of symbolism.64 He utilized several mythical
examples of totemism and its relationship to the Oedipus Complex, particularly
those of Adonis and Aphrodite, and Attis and C ~ b e l e . ~ ~
Freud had considerable knowledge about concepts and interpretation of dreams
in antiquity, and he felt that the ancients had several attitudes that corresponded
closely with his own. He admired Aristotle’s naturalistic viewpoint toward dreams,
and frequently referred to Aristotle’s statement that dreams represent mental
activity during sleep.66 For most of the ancients, such as Macrobius and Artemi-
dorm whom Freud cited,67dreams had a divine or an occult significance directly
describing a future event or necessitating an interpretation to realize their pre-
dictive meaning. Dreams were also interpreted before a military campaign, such as
the example of Alexander’s dream before the seige of Tyre.68 Freud mentioned that
Hippocrates dealt with the relation of dreams to illness, and that Aristotle often
thought it possible that a beginning of illness finds itself first revealed in dreams.69
Freud also referred to Herophilus, a physician who lived under the first Ptolemy,
who believed that some dreams clearly pictured +vishesof the dreamer, anticipating
Freud’s wish fulfillment theory of dreams by some 2,000 years.70 “The respect paid
to dreams in antiquity is, however, based upon correct psychological insight and is
the homage paid to the uncontrolled and indestructible forces in the human mind,
to the ‘daemonic’ power which produces the dream wish and which we find at work
in the unconscious.”71 Freud was also aware of Plato’s attitude toward dreams as
having a moral sense, and that a virtuous man merely dreams what a wicked man
does.72
Greek mythological subjects were discussed directly by Freud on several
occasions. I n his paper, “The Theme of the Three he discusses the
“Freud, S.: Origins of Psychoanalysis, p. 237.
.
62Freud.S.: “On the Sexual Theories of Children” (1908). I ,
Standard Edition. Vol. IX. London.
Hogarth Press, 1959, p. 211.
SSFreud, S.: “Creative Writers and Daydreaming” (1908), Standard Edition, Vol. IX, p. 152.
64Freud, S.: A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, pp. 141-4.
OsFreud, S.: “Totem and Taboo” (1913), Standard Edition, Vol. XIII, p. 152.
66Freud, S.: “The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), in Standard Edition, Vol. IV, London,
Hogarth Press, 1953, pp. 2-3; Freud, S.: “The Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of
Dreams” (1917), in Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, London, Hogarth Press, 1957, p. 234; Freud, S.: A
General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, p. 79; Freud, S.: “An Autobiogra hical Study” (1925), in
Standard Edition, Vol. XX, London, Hogarth Press, 1959, p. 46; Freud, S.; &ew Introductory Lectures
o n Psychoanalysis (1933), London, Hogarth Press, 1949, p. 26.
67Freud,S.: “Interpretation of Dreams”, Standard Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 3-4,98.
681bid., p. 99.
CgIbid., p. 33.
?OIbid., p. 132.
71Ibid., Vol. V., p. 614.
T21bid., p. 620.
73Freud, S.: “The Theme of the Three Caskets” (1913), Sfandard Edition, Vol. XII, London,
Hogarth Press, 1958, pp. 289-301.
 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 75

three fates of Greek mythology and attempts to demonstrate that in the develop-
ment of this myth, the Goddess of Love replaces the Goddess of Death, and was at
once identical to her. He then emphasized the dual aspect of the mother goddess as
creator and destroyer. I n “ ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians’ Freud wrote of
the great temple dedicated to Artemis in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. Freud
briefly reviewed the history of the temple, and described the apostle Paul’s visit to
Ephesus in 54 A. D., and his failure to suppress the idolatry of the city. Later the
fourth apostle, John, accompanied by Mary, visited Ephesus and built the first
basilica in honor of the new mother-goddess of the Christians. This article is simply
a brief historical note, and offers a psychoanalytic interpretation of the phenomena
of the mother-goddess only by implication.
In a short work, “A Mythological Parallel to a Visual Obsession”,’6 Freud
described a patient’s repetitive phantasy of seeing his father represented as the
naked lower half of the body, provided with arms and legs, but lacking the upper
part of the body. The facial features were painted on the abdomen, and the genitalia
absent. Freud alluded to the Greek legend of Baubo’s exposure of her body to
Demeter, and the statuettes of Baubo found in Asia Minor showing a woman without
a head or chest and a face sketched upon the abdomen. He discussed the symbolism
of the Medusa’s head in another paper76as a manifestation of a woman who is
castrated and therefore frightens and repels others because of this. Her decapitation,
the serpents replacing her hair, and the reaction of stiffness and turning to stone by
its observer, are all representations of castration anxiety. This symbol of horror was
worn by Athene, and frequently used as an amulet for protection against the evil
eye.
PSYCHOANALYTIC
THEORIES UTILIZINGGREEKIDEAS
As A BASIS
A . T h e Oedipus Complex
One of the most famous and significant of psychoanalytic theories has a n ex-
tremely personal significance for Freud, and utilizes a tragic figure of Greek myth-
ology and drama for its designation as the Oedipus complex. The early acquaintance
with this work at the gymnasium by Freud has already been described. However,
it was not until Freud was over 40 years old, that he began to develop an under-
standing of its extraordinary and at times terrifying meaning for himself. I n October
1896, Freud’s father had died, and Freud reacted profoundly describing the feeling
of being “torn up by the roots1’.7y Later he referred to the death of one’s father as
being “the most important event, the most poignant loss, of a man’s life”.78 One
sees the development of his concept of the Oedipus complex as a reaction to the loss
of his father. The importance of this was realized through his self analysis, the
exploration of his dreams and clinical study of patients. These factors are vividly
revealed in Freud’s correspondence with Fliess during this critical phase in his
emotional and corresponding scientific development. Never before in the history of
scientific thought have these relationships between the subjective affective forces
’+Freud,S.: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (1911),Standard Edition, Vo. XII, pp. 342-344.
’SFreud, S.: “A Mythological Parallel to a Visual Obsession” (1916), Standard Edition, XIV,
pp. 337-8.
76Freud, S.: “Medusa’s Head” (1940), Standard Edition, Vol. XVIII, pp. 273-4.
nFreud, S.: Origins of Psychoanalysis, p. 170.
7SFreud, S.: “Interpretation of a Dream”, Standard Edition, Vol. IV, p. XXVI.
76 GARFIELD TOURNEY

of the struggling investigator been so clearly correlated with a scientific achievement

having an objective meaning for mankind as a whole. Science itself, with all its
impersonalized abstractions, motivationally remains rooted in man’s own primitive
emotionality. Operationalism is only a secondary phenomenon aiding in the testing
and clarification of scientific hypotheses ; it never creates hypotheses, but leads to
their verification or rejection.
I n the Fleiss letters following the death of Freud’s father, one finds Freud
introducing and describing many fascinating ideas, that undoubtedly related to
many of his own phantasies about his father. He speaks of the devil as a father
figure,79 the child’s disappointment in his parents, the creation of myths about the
child’s “true” parentage,80 the importance of the first three years of life and the
significance of childhood fantasies. I n a letter of May 31, 1897, Freud revealed an
incest dream he had shortly after the death of his father,81and in notes accompanying
the letter stated “Hostile impulses against parents (a wish that they should die) are
also an integral part of neuroses . . . One of the manifestations of grief is then to
reproach oneself for their death (cf. what are described as ‘melancholias’) or t o
punish oneself in a hysterical way by putting oneself into their position with an idea
of retribution . . , It seems as though in sons this death-wish is directed against their
father and in daughters against their mother”.82 Freud describes here for the first
time one of the most important components of the Oedipus complex,
Freud continued to struggle with such conflicts within himself, and wrote of
his chief patient as being himself, and that this analysis was more difficult than
any other.83 In a letter dated September 21, 1897,84he revealed his rejection of the
reality of the seduction stories as told by his patients, and believed that these were
actually phantasies, a concept probably derived from his own analysis and the
recognition of his own phantasies about his mother.85 Freud revealed that he had
projected onto his father certain of his own feelings and fears.’J6 Also, the recol-
lections of positive feelings toward his old nurse, who was rejected from the house-
hold when Freud was three years old, as well as his ill wishes toward his one-year-
younger brother who died, were brought to consciousness.~~
The culmination of these experiences was the discovery of the Oedipus com-
plex. He associates his own personal experiences with those of Oedipus, and affords
an explanation why the drama of Sophocles has such an ubiquitous appeal. In the
letter of October 15, 1897, he wrote: “I have found love of the mother and jealousy
of the father in my own case too, and now believe it to be a general phenomenon of
early childhood . . . If that is the case, the gripping power of Oedipus Rex, in spite
of all the rational objections to the inexorable fate that the story presupposes, be-
comes intelligible . . . Every member of the audience was once a budding Oedipus
in fantasy, and this dream-fulfillment played out in reality causes everyone to recoil
in horror, with the full measure of repression which separates his infantile from his
?%Freud, S.: Origins of Psychoanalysis, pp. 187-9.
‘Ozbid.. D. 190.

a Sigmund Freud, Vol. I, p. 325.

 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 77

present state.’188 Shortly after this Freud expressed a need to read more about the
Oedipus legend.89 One can see then the great importance the Oedipus myth and
drama had for Freud during this period in which so many of his psychoanalytic
hypotheses were being formulated.
Freud’s magnum opus, the Interpretation of Dreams, was created during this
period and completed in 1899. In this work, one finds a number of references to the
Oedipus story and its relationship to an understanding of Hamlet. Freud uses the
legend of Oedipus and Sophocles’ drama as confirmation for his theory. “The
action of the play consists in nothing other than the process of revealing, with cun-
ning delays @ndever-mounting excitement-a process that can be likened to the
work of psychoanalysis-that Oedipus himself is the murderer of Laius, but further
that he is the son of the murdered man and of Jocasta. Appalled at the abomination
which he has unwittingly performed, Oedipus blinds himself and forsakes his home.
The oracle has been fulfilled.”s0 The blinding itself represents the male child’s
greatest fear as punishment for his wishes, mainly c a ~ t r a t i o n . ~ ~
The drama of Sophocles has continued to arouse a modern audience, because
the nature of the material continues to touch upon a dominant emotional conflict.
Oedipus’ destiny “moves us only because it might have been ours-because the
oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all
of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulses towards our mother and our first
hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us
that this is For the normal individual, this attachment toward the mother
and rivalry with the father is resolved, while in the psychoneurotic the early con-
flicts with the parents are perpetuated in their displacement and projection onto
other persons. And like Oedipus, we live in ignorance of these desires, i.e., they are
repressed into the unconscious.
At this point, one is reminded of Freud’s own incestuous dream toward his
mother that occurred after his father’s death. How significant was Freud’s identifica-
tion with Oedipus, and how often was this expressed in some disguised way for
Freud? Of course, strictly speaking according to psychoanalytic theory, all men
identify with Oedipus. But Freud knew Oedipus as a myth and dramatic character
and expressed this complex series of interactions between child and parents as the
Oedipus complex. Amalia Freud as ‘LJocasta”,Jacob Freud as “Laius”, and the
child “Oedipus” Sigmund Freud are the personages of his drama. Freud’s early
identifications with Alexander the Great 93 and Hannibal,54and his later identifica-
tion with Moses95 have been emphasized by others, but the crucial hero with whom
he identified may have been Oedipus. From the Oedipus complex he derived the
origins of culture and civilization, the basis of art, the theory of the hero and of
Greek tragedy, as well as religion. In many ways Freud was obsessed with the
Oedipal basis of so many aspects of man’s existence, that one can only conclude
aaIbid., pp. 223-224.
~ Q I M .p.
, 248.
QOFreud,S.: “The Interpretation of Dreams”, Standard Edition, Vo. IV, pp. 261-2.
OlIbid., Vol. V., p. 398.
021bid., Vol. IV, p . 262.
93Jones,E.: hc. cit., Vol. I., p. 18.
941bid., p. 23.
QbPuner,H. W.: Freud, H i s Life and Mind,New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1947, p. 173-179,
Jones, E.: Life and Works ofSigmund Freud, Vol. 111, New York, Basic Books, 1957, pp. %7-78.
78 GARFIELD TOURNEY

that this had a most intense personal meaning for him, that he felt deeply a daemonic
identity with this legendary and literary portrayal of man’s tragedy. Was not this
role played by Freud again and again in his life, not only with Jacob Freud, but
with Brucke, Meynert, Breuer, Fliess, and when Freud finally became Laius, the
father, how often he was threatened by the horde of young rebels-Adler, Jung,
Stekel and later even Rank and his beloved Ferenczi. Finally, in a sense Freud too
had sinned against humanity, in that he again brought to man’s awareness the
fallacy of his thought rationality and replaced it by concepts of unconscious in-
fantile sexual motivations.
Throughout his life Freud had a close relationship with his mother, and she
lived with Freud and his family until the time of her death in 1930.96 Freud’s
favorite child was his daughter Anna, the only child who followed the father and
became a psychoanalyst. In the 1920’s she began to substitute for Freud a t a num-
ber of scientific meetings, and aided him greatly in his psychoanalytic work. At this
point in his career Freud was in his seventies, and one can readily raise the compari-
son between the aged Freud with all his personal struggles along with a recently dis-
covered malignance, and his daughter Anna with the elderly, ailing and rejected
blind Oedipus being taken care of by his devoted daughter Antigone. It, therefore,
is of particular interest to note that Freud spoke of Anna as his Antigone. I n 1935
in a letter to Stefan Zweig, Freud spoke that his idea of enjoying spring with him
a t Mount Carmel was merely a phantasy. “Even supported by my faithful Anna-
Antigone I would not embark on a journey.”$7
I n 1910, Freud first used the term Oedipus I n speaking of the male
child, he stated: “He begins to desire his mother . . . and to hate his father anew
as a rival who stands in the way of this wish; he comes, as we say, under the domin-
ance of the Oedipus complex.” This concept, was long familiar to Freud and he had
referred to it as the “Family Romance”99or the “nuclear complex.”lOO l7or Iqreud,
the Oedipus complex is the central problem of neurosis. “It has justly been said
that the Oedipus complex is the nuclear complex of the neuroses, and constitutes
the essential part of their content. It represents the peak of infantile sexuality,
which, through its after-effects, exercises a decisive influence on the sexuality of
adults. Every new arrival on this planet is faced by the task of mastering the Oedipus
complex; anyone who fails to do so falls a victim to neuroses.”1o1
Freud extended the application of the Oedipus complex far beyond that of
individual neuroses, even making such a sweeping generalization as that the begin-
nings of religions, morals, society and art converge in the Oedipus complex.1o2 He
did apply the concept more specifically to the understanding of ancient Greek
tragedy, which has relevance for our discussion. The hero of Greek tragedy must
suffer and bear the burden of “tragic guilt”. The basis of this guilt is often difficult
g6Jones,E.: loc. cit., Vol. 11, pp. 453-4; Fromm, E.: Sigmund Freud’s Mission, New York, Harper
and Brothers, 1959, pp. 10-18.
97Freud, E. L.: Zoc. cit., p. 278.
g*Freud, S.: “A Special Type of Choice of Object Made by Men” (1910), Sfandurd Edition,
Vol. XI, p. 171.
ggFreud,S.: On’gins of Psychoanalysis, p. 256, Freud, S.: “Family Romances” (1909), Standard
Edition, Vol. IX, pp. 237-241.
looFreud,S.: “The Sexual Theories of Children” (1908), Standard Edition, Vol. IX, p. 214.
“J’Freud, S.: “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (1905), Standard Edition, Vol. VII, p.
226, n. dated 1920.
lo2Freud,S.: “Totem and Taboo” (1913), Standard Edition, Vol. XIII, p. 156.
 FREUD AND T H E GREEKS 79

to discern, but is often expressed as some rebellion against divine or human author-
ity. The Chorus sympathized with the Hero, attempted to control his actions, and
mourned for him in the end. Freud believed the Hero represented the primal father,
who took over the tragic guilt of the Chorus as a form of redempti~n.’”~ This was
thought to have originally some basis in historical reality, when a primal horde of
youths actually rebelled against their father and murdered him. Freud went on to
regard this early “historical experience” as having a phylogenetic representation, and
that each of us has a racial unconscious in which this original crime continues to
exist and form the prototype for the child’s development of the Oedipus complex,1o4
presenting us with a quasi-scientific doctrine of original sin.
I n the evolution of Freud’s thought, we see here an interesting turn of events.
We begin with a Greek myth, that of Oedipus, see it’s personal meaning for him,
and from this experience to postulate a legitimate scientific hypothesis, the Oedipus
complex, which was substantiated clinically and has validity as a scientific theorem.
Freud then reinterprets the theory and finds the basis of man’s most complex cultural
phenomena in the Oedipus complex, a generalization that in itself has many mythical
qualities. Many contemporary psychoanalysts and psychiatrists view the Oedipus
complex as a result of the individual interaction between child and parents, modified
by many social and cultural influences, and not necessarily following the relatively
fixed patterning as originally described by Freud. His sweeping interpretations of
cultural phenomena in terms of the Oedipus complex have been largely rejected by
anthropologists and sociologists, one prominent anthropologist calling it “intuitive,
dogmatic and wholly unhistorical.”106Also the rejection of the Lamarckian position
that acquired characteristics can be inherited had long been rejected in Freud’s time
as lacking any creditable evidence, yet Freud disregarded the findings of genetics
and modern evolution theory, and insisted th a t acquired mental traits could be
inherited.lo6 This appears to be an implicit Platonism following the concept of
Plato’s theory of eternal ideas.’”’
Closely associated with the Oedipus complex, and also derived from the Greek
legend, is Freud’s frequent reference to the Riddle of the Sphinx.lo8 The child’s
concern as to where babies come from is in distorted form the same riddle that was
propounded by the Theban Sphinx. Although Freud makes this assumption re-
peatedly, he never clearly explains his reasoning behind this interpretation.
I n later works Freud made further expositions and references to the Oedipus
complex,1o9but always held to his basic views regarding its role in neuroses and
cultural phenomena without making any modifications of the earlier views as re-
ported here.

Io3Ibid.,p. 155-6.
’O‘lbid., pp. 157-161.
‘OSKroeber, A. L.: Anthropology, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948, p. 616.
‘06Evenin his last two works Freud rigidly adhered to his doctrine of the “primal horde” and
phylogenetic inheritance, and gives no indication that he has examined the studies of investigators in
the field of genetics and anthropology, nor dealt with the legitimate criticism directed against him.
See Moses and Monotheism (1937), London, Hogarth Presss, 1951, pp. 133-7, 151, 157; Outline of
Psychoanalysis (1939), New York, W. W. Norton, 1949, pp. 92-93.
‘O’Bidney, D. : Theoretical Anthropology, New York, Columbia University Press, 1953,
lo8Freud,S.: “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality”, Standard Edition, Vol. VIP; :;
Freud, S.: “The Sexual Enlightenment of Children”, Standard Edition, Vol. IX, p. 135; Freud, S.:
195;
“On the Sexual Theories of Children”, Standard Edition, Vol. IX, pp. 212-3; Freud, S.: “A Phobia in
a Five Year Old Roy” (1909), Standard Edition, Vol. X, p. 133.
80 GARFIELD TOURNEY

B. Narcissism
The Greek myth of Narcissus afforded Freud with a designation for another
of his important concepts, namely narcissism. Narcissus, having spurned Echo,
was punished by the gods by forcing him to fall in love with himself, and when this
occurred, upon viewing himself in the limpid waters of a spring, be became so en-
tranced that he could not tear himself away from his image and died there of languor.
The term ‘harcissism” did not originate with Freud, but the term narcissus-like
was used by Havelock Ellis in 1898 and in 1899 Nacke introduced the term “Nar-
cismus” to describe a sexual perversion.l1° Freud used the German word Narzissmus,
which he defended on the ground of euphony against the possible more accurate
“Narzissismus”. Although narcism has been used in English, the more common and
accepted term is narcissism.
Freud only casually referred to the myth, and as he elaborated his hypothesis of
narcissism into his libido theory, he was far afield from the Greek myth, not main-
taining any close relationship between theory and myth as he did with Oedipus.
The term narcissism, although used descriptively by Freud, came to refer to the
libido directed toward the self.”’ Narcissism came to have significance in self love,
megalomanies, hypochondriasis, behavior of children and the aged, physical illness,
sexual perversions as well as certain aspects of normal love. Freud wrote a stim-
ulating, but intellectually disturbing essay “On Narcissism”, which included many
exciting ideas, which he was eventually to revise even more radically.

C . Eros and Thanatos

I n Freud’s final instinct theory in which he described two primal instincts,
Eros, the life instinct, and Thanatos, the death instinct, one again discovers a close
relationship with the ancient Greeks. First in the designation of the concepts, the
reference to Plato and others in the work in which he originally described these
concepts, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and finally in the marked resemblances
between Freud’s hypothesis and those of the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles.
It is interesting to note that Hesiod’s Eros had a metaphysical significance and
represented the attraction which causes beings to come together.I12 The later Eros,
the Cupid of the Romans, was the goddess and personification of love.l13 Freud’s
concept of Eros is actually closer to that of Hesiod than to later legends, but he
never clarifies the myth he is referring to, and many of his ideas are undoubtedly
derived from what Plato has to say about Eros in the Symposium.
Breuer made a reference to Eros before Freud in one of his case studies in the
Studies on Hysteria in which he referred to his patient as finding in Eros the terrible
power which controls her and decides her destiny, and so she is frightened away.‘14
This sounds very much like Freud’s use of the concept later in his works. Freud
logFreud, S.: A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, pp. 289-296; Freud, S.: “Inhibitions,
Symptoms and Anxiety” (1926), Standard Edition, Vol. XX, pp. 113-115; Freud, S.; Outline of Psy-
choanalysis, pp. 96-9.
llOEllis, H.: “The Conception of Narcissism”, in Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Vol. 111, New
York, Random House, 1936, pp. 347-375.
“‘Freud, S.: “On Narcissism: An Introduction (1914)”, in Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, pp. 67-102.
llZGuirand, F. : “Greek Mythology” in Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, New York, Prome-
theus Press, 1959, p. 91.
‘13Zbid.,pp. 149-150.
“‘Breuer, J. and Freud, S.: “Studies on Hysteria”, Standard Edition, Vol. 11, p. 246.
 FREUDANDTHEGREEKS 81

first referred to Eros in 1910 as “the preserver of all living things”, 116 which an-
ticipates his later use of the term in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. As postulated in
this work, Eros represents the libido, life-instinct or sexual instinct. “. . . . the libido
of our sexual instincts would coincide with the Eros of the poets and philosophers
which holds all living things together.”l16 And later, “In its origin, function, and
relation to sexual love, the ‘Eros’ of the philosopher Plato coincides exactly with the
~ ~ ~ explains to us to some extent his
life-force, the libido of p s y c h ~ a n a l y s i s . ” Freud
choice of the term Eros as a means of reducing the criticism of his use of the term
sex. “I cannot see any merit in being ashamed of sex; the Greek word ‘Eros’, which
is to soften the affront, is in the end nothing more than a translation of our German
word Liebe.”ll* But in the same paragraph, Freud explains that he has always
avoided making concessions to faintheartedness in his ideas. Perhaps the choice of
Eros is much closer to certain Greek ideas than Freud recognized at this point, and
although Freud presented the concepts of Eros and the death instinct as highly
tentative hypotheses, he was soon to give them the quality of a myth, treat them as
objective reality,llg even though objective evidence was lacking. Again we see
Freud, like with the Oedipus complex, beginning with a myth, connecting it into a
psychoanalytic hypothesis, and finally broadening its significance into a new myth.
And did not Freud himself say: “The theory of the instincts is, as it were, our
mythology. The instincts are mythical beings, superb in their indefiniteness.”lZ0
A beautiful metaphor, but does not subsequent investigation suggest that in so
much of Freud’s instinct theory that we are dealing with myths, indefinite concepts
incapable of scientific verification? Current orthodoxy in psychoanalysis has even
rejected Freud’s final instinct theory and has modified it considerably, emphasing
sexual and aggressive drives, rather than life and death instincts.121
Let us now examine the relationship between Freud’s final instinct theory and
an important philosophical teaching of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Empedocles.
The latter was a fascinating personality, in his prime around 450 B. C., who func-
“SFreud, S.: “Leonard0 da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood” (1910), Standard Edition,
Vol. XI, p. 70.
l16Freud,S.: “Beyond the Pleasure Principal” (1920)) Standard Edition, Vol. XVII, p. 50.
Il’Freud, S.: “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (1921), Standard Edition, Vol.
XVIII,p. 91. See also Nachmansohn, M.: “Freud’s Libido Theorie verglichen mit der Eroslehre
Platos”, Internationale Zeitschrift f u r Psychoanalyse, 3: 134, 1915 and Pfister, 0.: “Plato, a Fore-
runner of Psycho-Analysis”, International Journnl of Psychoanalysis, 3 : 169-174, 1922. The classical
scholar Cornford expressed his opinion that Freud and Plato stand at opposite poles, in that the
origin of Eros for Plato is spiritual and eternal, rather than a manifestation of the instinct of the flesh,
the Eros of Freud, Cornford, F. M.: “The Doctrine of Eros in Plato’s Symposium”, in The Unwritten
Philosophy and Other Essays, Cambridge, University Press, 1950. However, Freud’s concept is
primarily metaphysical, rather than scientific, a point Cornford did not fully grasp.
I1*Freud,S.: loc. cit. p. 91.
1191nTeferring t o Eros and the death instinct, he stated, “The conceptions I have summarized
here I first put forward only tentatively, but in the course of time they have won such a hold over
me that I can no longer think in any other way. To my mind they are theoretically far more fruitful
than any others it is possible to employ; they provide us with that simplification, without either ignor-
ing or doing violence to the facts, which is what we strive after in scientific work.” Freud, S.: Civil-
ization and Its Discontents (1930), London, Hogarth Press, 1949, pp. 98-9. An idea winning a hold
over an individual and the principle of simplification are in no way strict criteria for the establish-
ment of a scientific postulate. See also Freud, S.: New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, pp.
124-143; Freud, S.: Outline of Psychoanalysis, pp. 19-24.
120Freud,S.:New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 124.
121A number of psychoanalysts have rejected Freud’s postulations of Eros and death instincts.
See Fenichel, 0.: “A Critique of the Death Instincts” (1935). Collected Papers, First Series, New York,
Norton, 1953, pp. 363-372; Alexander, F., Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis, New York, Norton, 1948,
pp. 63-75.
82 GARFIELD TOURNEY

tioned as politician, scientist, physician, philosopher, religious teacher and mystic.122

He was the first of the Greeks to promulgate the theory of the four elements, earth,
air, fire and water. His scientific studies included theories of evolution, sexual
characteristics in plants, and effluential vision. For his philosophy, Empedocles
gathered elements from every available source, from the cosmogonies of Homer
and Hesiod, the rationalism of Parmenides, poetic legend, Orphic mysticism, the
experiences of a physician, the observations of nature, and the visions of a mystic.
He has presented us with a unitary picture of the world, nature and man, their
mysteries and the cycle of birth and death.lZ3 It is in his concept of two dynamic
forces, Love and Strife (or Hate)Iz4that bear such a similarity to Freud’s own theory
of Eros and the death instinct.
For Empedocles, nature is only a mixing and separating of the four elements,
and when the elements come together to form plant, beast, bird, OT man, this is
deemed Becoming, and when the elements separate, this is Death. These processes
of motion and change were ascribed to the two principles, Strife, which separate
the elements, and Love, which brings them together. Empedocles found in Love,
personified as Aphrodite, the same inpulses to union that characterized man and
woman, mainly the sexual impulses. For him the human passion has a cosmic
significance.
“. . . I shall tell thee a two-fold tale. At one time it grew together to be one only
out of many, at another it parted asunder so as to be many instead of one; -
Fire and Water and Earth and the mighty height of Air; dread Strife, too, apart
from these, of equal might to each, and Love in their midst, equal in length and
breadth. Her do thou contemplate with th y mind, nor sit with dazed eyes.
It is she that is known as being implanted in the frame of mortals. It is she that
makes them have thoughts of love and work the works of peace. They call her
by the name of Joy and Aphrodite.”lZ6

And with Love there is union, and with Strife, separation.

.
“. . all things that are more adapted for mixture are alike to one another and
united in love by Aphrodite. Those things, again, that differ most in origin,
mixture and forms imprinted on each, are most hostile, being altogether un-
accustomed to unite and very sorry for the bidding of Strife, since it hath
wrought their birth.”lZ6

Freud’s third and final instinct theory resulted from his dissatisfaction in ex-
plaining aggressive behavior, the repetition compulsion, the negative therapeutic
reaction, and sado-masochism in terms of his earlier libido theory and the pleasure-
unpleasure principle. In developing his thesis, Freud defined a n instinct as an in-
direct compulsion in organic life to return to a n earlier state of things, which was in
contrast to his former view that instincts were impelled toward change and develop-
‘21Burnet,J.: Early Greek Philosophy, London, Adams and Charles Black, 1930, pp. 197-203.
I2Coi-nford,F. M. : Prinn‘pium Sapientiae, Cambridge, University Press, 1953, p. 39.
124Similar
dualistic concepts are characteristic of many religions and philosophy. See Tourney,
G.: “Empedocles and Freud, Heraclitus and Jung”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 30: 10%
123, 1956.
l2jFragment 17. Cited by Burnet, J.: loc. cit., pp. 207-8.
126Fragment22, Zkd.,p. 22.
 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 83

ment.I27 Change was imposed upon the elemental organic entity because of the
relation of sun to earth, and modification was an imposition for the organism,
accepted by the conservative instincts and accumulated for further repetition.
“Those instincts are therefore bound to give a deceptive appearance of being forces
tending towards change and progress, whilst in fact they are merely seeking to reach
an ancient goal by paths alike old and new.128The first instinct then is the drive to
return to an earlier state of things, to an inanimate state. This Freud called the
death instinct. Opposed to the death instinct, are the self preservative and sexual
drives, somatically based in the germ cells, and working agisnst the death of the
living substances and giving to it what may be thought of as a potential immortality.
These latter drives are called the life instincts. Freud designated this second group as
Eros, a term borrowed from the Platonic concept of Eros in the Symposium. Only
in ~onversation’~9 did Freud refer to the death instinct as Thanatos, the Greek
personification of death, a designation originally made by Federn130 and used by
many psychoanalysts subsequently.
Eros represents the preserver of all things, Thanatos, the destroyer; the former
beings unity in self and species preservation, ego-love and object-love, while the
latter leads to destruction, disunity and organic-death. Freud states a concept
almost identical with Empedocles, about whose ideas, Burnet stated : “The function
of Love is to produce union; that of Strife, to break it up again.”131 Freud sum-
marized his theory similarly:
“After long doubts and vacillations, we have decided to assume the existence
of only two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct. The aim of the
first of these basic instincts is to establish even greater unities and to preserve
them thus-in short to bind together; the aim of the second, on the contrary,
is to undo connections and so to destroy things. We may suppose that the final
aim of the destructive instinct is to reduce living things to an inorganic state.
For this reason we call it the death inslin~t.”’~~

Freud utilized this theory to explain many clinical phenomena, such as sadism
representing the death instinct turned outwards against the external world, while
masochism is the death instinct driven against the self because of certain impedi-
ments to its expression in the external world. The underlying energies of Thanatos
account for the compulsive repetition of traumatic experiences, the need for self-
punishment and the failure of some neurotic patients to respond favorably to psy-
choanalytic therapy. Eros and Thanatos are constantly fused and diffused with
one another, accounting for the many intricacies of man’s complex behavior.
For Empedocles, the interaction of Love and Strife had a cosmic significance,
not just an individual psychological one, passing through cycles of domination by
one and submission by the other with a mixing and remixing of the elements.133
Freud, in speaking metaphysically, rather than psychologically, made an inter-

127Freud,s.: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, Standard Edition, Vol. XVIII, p. 36.
128lbid., p. 38.
l29Jones, E., loc. cit., Vol. 111, p. 273.
- ..--.
130 Jhid
‘31Burnet, J.: loc. &t., p, 232
‘StFreud, S.: Outline of Psychoanalysis, p . 20.
l33Burnet1J.: loc. n’t., p. 234.
84 GARFIELD TOURNEY

pretation of Eros as a cosmological phenomenon in order to explain the union of

“particles” t o form life and more highly developed beings in the evolutionary
stream. Freud discussed the line of thought developed by Plato in the S y m p o s i u m
where originally three sexes were described, male, female and their union. Zeus de-
cided t o sever the united humans in two, and since then the two parts of man have
sought one another to re-establish the primordial union. After discussing this
theory of Plato’s Freud asked:
“Shall we follow the hint given us by the poet-philosopher, and venture upon
the hypothesis that living substance a t the time of its coming to life was torn
apart into small particles, which have ever since endeavored to reunite through
the sexual instincts? That these instincts, in which the chemical affinity of
inanimate matter persisted, gradually succeeded, as they developed through
the kingdom of the protista, in overcoming the difficulties put in the way of
that endeavor by an environment charged with dangerous stimuli-stimuli
which compelled them to form a protective cortical layer? That these splintered
fragments of living substance in this way attained a multicellular condition and
finally transferred the instinct for reuniting, in the most highly concentrated
form, to the germ cells? - But here, I think, the moment has come for breaking
off.7,134

As with the Oedipus complex, Freud also used the hypothesis of Eros and
Thanatos t o explain many complex cultural phenomena, and he repeatedly empha-
sized the basis of culture in the mastery of instincts. Freud believed that our civil-
ization evolved in relationship to the inhibition of sexuality, which is partially re-
pressed, but also deflected into non-sexual aims, the process of s ~ b l i m a t i o n . ’ The
~~
death instinct, aggression, constitutes the main obstacle to the development of
culture, and accounts for man’s repeated wars and devastations upon himself. Eros
binds together individuals, families, tribes, races and nations into one great unity of
humanity and are opposed by man’s natural hostilities which ever threaten the de-
velopment of c i ~ilizatio n .’~
Freud
~ concludes, “And now, it seems to me, the mean-
ing of the evolution of culture is no longer a riddle to us. It must present to us the
struggle between Eros and Death, between the instincts of life and the instincts of
destruction, as it works itself out in the human species.”’37 Such was Freud’s grand
and eloquent mythopoeic description of man’s complex cultural development.
One may then ask, is there any direct relationship between the concepts of
Empedocles and Freud’s hypotheses? Seventeen years after the promulgation of his
theory in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud first made mention of Empedocles,
speaking of him as one of the grandest and most remarkable personages in the
history of Greek ci~ilization.’~~ Freud goes on to discuss Empedocles’ pholosophy
and concluded, “The two fundamental principles of Empedocles - Love and Strife
- are, both in name and in function, the same as our two primal instincts, Eros and
Destructiveness, the former of which strives to combine existing phenomena into
‘a4Freud,S.: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, Standard Edition, Vol. XVIII, p. 58.
’”Freud, S. : New Znlroductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, p. 143.
136Fre~d, S.: Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 102.
I3’Ibid., p. 103.
138Freud, S. : “Analysis Terminable and Interminable” (1937), Collected Papers, Vol. V, pp.
347-351. Freud dso mentioned Empedocles in his last work, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, p. 21.
 FREUD AND THE GREEKS 85

ever greater unities, while the latter seeks to dissolve these combinations and
destroy the structures to which they have given rise.”13s I n speaking of his attempt
to gain credance for this theory, even among psychoanalysts, Freud admitted the
possibility of an indebtedness to Empedocles for these concepts. “My delight was
proportionately great when I recently discovered that that theory was held by one of
the great thinkers of ancient Greece. For the sake of this confirmation I am happy to
sacrifice the prestige of originality, especially as I read so widely in earlier years that
I can never be quite certain that what I thought was a creation of my own mind may
not really have been an outcome of c r y p t a m n e ~ i a . ” ~ ~ ~ Freud derived some of
Had
these ideas by way of reading Plat0 and Aristotle, who referred to Empedocles in
their works? Empedocles was a contemporary of Sophocles, but it is doubtful that
he had any influence on the dramatist. One wonders about the content of Bren-
tano’s seminars, and whether a discussion of pre-Socratic philosophy was part of
the curriculum. Also one must recall Freud’s relation with the Gomperz family,
and the fact that the work he listed among the ten for the antiquarian Hinterberger
included Theodor Gomperz’s Greek Thinkers, which has a lengthy discussion of
Empedocles and his phil~sophy.’~~ Freud did not refer to this work as a source of his
discussion of Empedocles, but to a recently published work on the pre-Socratic
philosophers.142
A parallel in the creation of Freud’s concept of Eros and Thanatos with that
of the Oedipus complex can be seen. It appears that Freud again begins with a
mythical concept, molds it into a scientific hypothesis, and then extends the mean-
ing of the hypothesis until once again it has mythical significance in its divergent
and extensive explanations of complex cultural phenomena. Unlike the Oedipus
complex, however, there is little evidence from clinical data and experimental
studies, to support Freud’s initial application of his final instinct theory to the
understanding of individual psychological behavior. Freud can thus be viewed, not
only as a physician, psychologist and scientist, but like the Ancient Greeks, a creator
of myths, many of which have been assimilated into the intellectual atmosphere of
our time, as stimulating much provocative thought, through his magnificent, poetical
expression of human pathos, but, alas, failing to explain many of the complex
phenomena of man and society. Where science fails, myth supports.
In this presentation, some of the more direct relationships between the Greeks
and Freud have been described, and how they influenced him repeatedly in the
expression and elaboration of his ideas. Much of the greatness of Freud, along with
that of Western civilization, rests in the groundwork of the Greeks, but one weakness
of Freud as a scientist was undoubtedly related to his inability to transcend some of
these Greek ideas and his seeming necessity to recreate the myths of the past. Freud,
like Empedocles, was that peculiar form of genius that combines qualities of the
physician, scientist, philosopher, and even in a sense politician, seer, and mystic.
139Freud,S.: “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”, Collected Papers, Vol. V, pp. 349-350.
14oZbid..I n.
r - 348.
14’Gomperz,T.: Greek Thinkers, A Hist0l.y of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. I., London, John Murray,
1906l@. 227-254.
apelle, W.: Die Vorsokratiker, Leipzig, Kroner, 1934.