Introduction to Schreber’s ‘Memoirs of my nervous illness’: 1973: Samuel Weber

by Julia Evans on January 1, 1973

Introduction to the 1988 edition by Samuel Weber, Translated by Benjamin Gregg

The book:

Memoirs of my nervous illness : Daniel Paul Schreber (1842-1911) :

Published in German 1903 :

Translated and Edited by Ida MacAlpine & Richard A. Hunter : originally published 1955

( The introduction to the 1988 edition was originally published in German as the introduction to Daniel Paul Schreber: Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken: 1973: Published by Verlag Ullstein, Berlin)

See Memoirs of my nervous illness: 1903: D. P. Schreber or here for availability

From the back cover of 1988 edition

First issued in German in 1903, the book waited until 1955 for its publication in English, translated by Drs MacAlpine and Hunter. This edition reprints their work, adding an introduction by Samuel Weber that takes note of the position of the Schreber case in the Lacanian “return” to Freud”. Schreber’s autobiography continues to be widely discussed within contemporary psychoanalytic circles and in other contexts, including continental psychoanalysis, anti-psychiatry, and the renewed concern with the social and domestic history of the nineteenth century.

Samuel M. Weber is (in 1988) Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.)

Available here

References

P27 Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber: Medical Indoor Gymnastics; or, A system of hygenic exercises for home use to be practiced anywhere without apparatus or assistance by young and old of either sex, for the preservation of health and general activity: before 1861: p28 other books by the elder Schreber.

P28: The Biographical Lexicon of Outstanding Physicians of All Times and Peoples: edited by Dr August Hirsch

P28 Dr Schreber Senior: A doctrine of happiness for the physical life of Man.

P29 Daniel Godefredus Schreberus (Daniel Paul’s Great-grandfather): Report on the caterpillars which in 1751 and in the current year caused great devastation to the harvest in Thuringia and adjoining areas of Saxony: around 1764 & his ‘Instructions o stabilizing quicksand and making arid fields into meadows: published in Leipzig: 1764

Selected from the full reference list:

i) Sigmund Freud: Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (Dementia Paranoides): in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: vol 24: editor James Strachey: translated Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud and assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson: London, Hogarth press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis: 1953-1974: vol 12: p17-18. available here or Case history of Schreber: 1910: Sigmund Freud

ii) Sigmund Freud: Moses and Monotheism:SE XXIII

iii) Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams: Standard Edition: vol 4: p99 Availability : The Interpretation of Dreams: 1st November 1899 (published as 1900): Sigmund Freud or here

iv) Jacques Derrida: Freud and the Scene of Writing: in Derrida: Writing and Difference: translated Alan Bass: Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 1978

v) Note 30) See Georges Bataille: La part maudite: Paris, Editions de Minuit: 1967: On the concept of “restricted economy”, see also Jacques Derrida: From restricted to general economy: in Derrida: Writing and difference: p251-277. Here an interpretation remains to be made which would reveal the social mediation of Schreber’s delusional system not only in the sense of shared notions, but as a structuring factor. One would have to investigate especially the heightened problematic of identity of a (double) God who appears on the one hand as a transcendent Creator, and on the other as a limited subject, the phantasmal presentation of the bourgeois individual.

vi) Sigmund Freud: Fetishism: SE XXI

vii) Jacques Lacan: On a question preliminary to any possible treatment of psychosis: in Lacan: Écrits, a selection : translated by Alan Sheridan: New York, Norton: 1977 : On a question preliminary to any possible treatment of psychosis : 1955-1956 : two most important parts of Seminar III : Jacques Lacan or here

See also Samuel Weber: Rückkehr zu Freud: Jacques Lacan’s Ent-Stellung der Psychanalyse: Berlin, Ullstein: 1978. An English translation: Return to Freud: translated by Michael Levine: Cambridge University Press.

A more complete list of relevant texts:

Availability of Daniel Paul Schreber’s Memoirs of my nervous illness & many of the commentaries Or here