ABSTRACT
Wortis’s memoir of Freud was among the first texts written by an analysand. Whereas most of the memoirs written by Freud’s analysands were published in the 1970s, Wortis published his first reminiscences in article form only about five years after the analysis ended and only several months after Freud’s death. Freud’s early rebuff of Wortis’s request stands in contrast not only to the present “different circumstances,” but to Havelock Ellis’s response to a similar suggestion from Wortis. The first encounter between Wortis and Freud ends with a gesture that prefigures their future relationship. Wortis’s memoir suggests that the most challenging moments for Freud are the occasions on which Wortis expresses approval of critical opinions toward psychoanalysis and of people who hold such opinions, such as Havelock Ellis or Wilhelm Steckel, or when he mentions controversial points about psychoanalysis, such as its orientation only toward certain social classes, especially the intellectual and wealthy.
