Decades after her grandfather’s death from cancer in 1939, Professor Freud considered many of his fundamental theories, from “penis envy” to transference, as obsolete – “great” wonderful as well as questionable,” as she said.
While he often challenged the patriarchal Victorian view of female sexuality, she wrote, “he reflected in his theory the belief that women were secondary and not the norm.” As for his conclusion that “women forever love their male therapist,” she says, he removed attachments like transference.
“He said it didn’t matter, women would get over it later,” said Professor Freud, “but I disagree. Women then look to another therapist to work through that.”
She absorbed her criticism in an interview for the Canadian television series, “Neighbours: Freud and Hitler in Vienna” (2003), saying, “In my eyes, both Adolf Hitler and my grandfather are all false prophets of the 20th century.” In her words, they shared “the ambition to convince other men of the only truth they knew”.
“He can never be wrong,” she said.
Miriam Sophie Freud was born in Vienna on August 6, 1924. Her father, Jean Martin Freud (known as Martin), was the eldest son of Sigmund Freud and a lawyer turned director of the Export House. Psychoanalysis by Dr. Freud. Her mother, Ernestine (Drucker) Freud, is a speech therapist known as Esti.
Sophie tries to make the most of her childhood, despite her parents’ feud and the feud between her and her brother, Walter. Only when she was enrolled as a teenager in Vienna’s most progressive girls’ school, the Schwarzwaldschule, did she excel as a student.
