IRIS - Res&Arch Institutional Research Information System - Research & Archive

Die Traumdarstellung des verwundeten Körpers: Freudsche Szenarien im Werk von Kokoschka und Schnitzler

Reinhardt

2020

---

Abstract

The dream analysis, which Freud referred to as the “royal road to the unconscious,” enables the revelation of what lies hidden behind the mask of social conventions and cultural models, granting access to the unconscious contents of the psyche. However, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, no less interest was sparked by remarkable discoveries in other scientific fields, which were less focused on the psychological sphere in the strict sense and more concerned with the physical. In particular, the increasing advances in anatomy and the discovery of X-rays multiplied the scenarios available, thanks to the possibility of gaining insight into the interior of the human body. The centrality of the visual dimension, which finally extended beyond the visible surface to capture the deepest physical and psychological aspects of the human being, fueled the creativity of writers and painters, especially within the Viennese Modernist movement. The intensification of vision penetrated the human being, revealing not only the skeletal structure and the neural connections tingling beneath the skin but also the deepest drives. One of the most suitable forms for representing this complex reality is undoubtedly the dream. Freud himself appears to unify the physical and psychological realms, particularly in light of a dream he described in The Interpretation of Dreams, where the vision of vivisection on his own body becomes a metaphor for self-analysis. In other words, the dream of the open, fragmented, mutilated body—or even merely lying dead, prepared for dissection—refers, on the one hand, to the body's interior but, on the other hand, provides valuable insights into the psychic interiority. In light of these considerations, the purpose of my contribution is to examine Freud's model through representations of the wounded body in dreams as depicted by certain authors, such as Oskar Kokoschka and Arthur Schnitzler, where the anatomical gaze aligns with psychological analysis. Although these authors clearly draw inspiration from the founder of psychoanalysis, they diverge significantly, if not radically, from him, bringing to light influences from an older tradition of dream representation.