ABSTRACT
This chapter pursues the history of early psychoanalytic discourse as originating in the intellectual and emotional bond between Freud and Wilhelm Fliess. A close reading of their correspondence allows me to demonstrate that the source of Freud’s scientific creativity lay not only in intellectual stimulation, but also in love that prompted him to undertake self-analysis. I read Freud’s letters to Fliess as an example of “a lover’s discourse” as proposed by Roland Barthes. I show that they contain expressions of affection which were socially repressed as non-normative to Western culture. I also use Freud’s love discourse addressed to his friend to re-examine the meanings of cultural concepts such as “friendship.” At a time of rapidly developing psycho-medical discourses on non-normative sexuality, writing about homosexual love required skilful masking, sometimes even against the beloved addressee. The fear of exposure affected not only published writings but also private discourses (e.g. letters). Thus, I read Freud’s reluctance to publish his letters to Fliess, his emotions associated with the rupture of their relationship, and the publication of excerpts from their private correspondence by Fliess in 1906 in the perspective of his fear of being exposed – an emotion deeply inscribed in LGBTQA+ history.
