Tuesday 9 January 2007

Freud’s ‘Rat Man’ 100 Years On. Inner Circle Seminar 119 (30 September 2007)


Freud’s ‘Rat Man’

100 Years On
 
Anthony Stadlen
conducts

Inner Circle Seminar No. 119
Sunday 30 September 2007
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.


Seminar participants will be shown unique, unpublished photographs of:
the Rat Man (with his pince-nez);
his mother, sisters, nephews, and niece;
and the ‘cruel captain’ (in 1907,
the year that the Rat Man met him).

Freud’s ‘Rat Man’ case study has been called (by Max Schur) his greatest. On 1 October 1907, ‘a youngish man of university education’ consulted Freud about various obsessions, including an obsession with rats, which started when a ‘cruel captain’ told him of an oriental torture in which rats bored into a man’s anus. Today, Anthony Stadlen reports on his historical research into the case over several decades, including interviews with the Rat Man’s family. This research suggests that Freud helped the Rat Man find fulfilment in work and in love. But was the decisive factor Freud’s virtuoso unravelling of what he called the Rat Man’s ‘rat delirium’? Or was it Freud’s warm interest and man-to-man discussion, e.g., of how women nowadays neglected to groom their pubic hair? You are invited to discuss the evidence.

Venue: Room C, Regent’s College, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1

Cost: Students £88, others £110, some bursaries, in advance
Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, ‘Oakleigh’, 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 E-mail:
stadlen@aol.com

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