Significant Moments: The Uncanny

If anyone represented the link with Freud and Freud's Vienna, it was the formidable Kurt Eissler. . . .
We finally met in 1974, while I was a candidate . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.
. . . in training at . . .
H.G. Wells, Soul of a Bishop.
. . . Toronto, at an annual meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Society in Denver, where I was presenting my first analytic paper. . . . Eissler and I immediately hit it off, although our friendship began on a curious note. I had never seen Dr. Eissler, nor he me. When I caught sight, of a tall, gaunt older man—at the time he was in his late sixties—in the lobby of the hotel where we were staying, looking like someone who had just stepped off the boat from Europe, dressed severely in a black suit with an almost haunted look about him, I knew it was Eissler.
And so I approached him. "Dr. Eissler, I presume. I am Jeff Masson."
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.
How do you know my name?
Francis Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Eissler was genuinely taken aback.
“How did you know it was . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.
. . . me?” he repeated.
E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Kingdom of the Blind.
I never saw you in my life!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
"Well, it was obvious."
"No, no, there is something else. There is something uncanny about this." He did not seem entirely certain that I had not used witchcraft to recognize him.
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.
I will say at once that . . .
E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Kingdom of the Blind.
. . . the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar. How this is possible, in what circumstances the familiar can become uncanny and frightening, I shall show in what follows.
Sigmund Freud, The 'Uncanny.'
Jeffrey Masson . . .
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud’s Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
. . . was an accident in . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius: The Fictitious Case of Tausk Contra Freud.
. . . Dr. Eissler’s . . .
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
. . . life.
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius: The Fictitious Case of Tausk Contra Freud.
Eissler’s life . . .
Paolo Migone, Introduction to K.R. Eissler, The Effect of the Structure of the Ego on Psychoanalytic Technique.
. . . history would not have been different in any way, if . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius: The Fictitious Case of Tausk Contra Freud.
. . . Masson . . .
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud’s Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis.
. . . had stayed . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius: The Fictitious Case of Tausk Contra Freud.
. . . at the University of Toronto . . .
Phyllis Grosskurth, The Secret Ring: Freud’s Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis (editor’s note).
. . . and the old man . . .
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop.
. . . had never met him. 
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius: The Fictitious Case of Tausk Contra Freud.
_______________________________________

I was an accident in Bob Strauss's life. Strauss's life history would not have been different in any way if I had stayed at Hogan & Hartson and the old man had never met me. I was originally assigned to work at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld in March 1988 by a temporary agency. The agency could have sent me anywhere. But it sent me to Akin Gump.

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/06/significant-moments-fathers-legacy.html

Oddly enough, I had a masters degree in international trade law and Bob Strauss had served as the U.S. Trade Representative in the Carter administration.

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/05/office-from-episode-initiation.html

It's as if uncanny things started to happen as soon as I began working at Bob Strauss's law firm -- and the uncanniness of my experiences has not stopped to this very day.

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/07/grand-rounds-hypothetical-part-1.html

Some people say that Freud's theory of psychoanalysis is a lot of mumbo jumbo. I don't think so. I believe in the power of the repetition compulsion in people's lives and I believe in the sense of the uncanny that accompanies it. I believe I am reliving, in a symbolic way, experiences from childhood that were overwhelming for me -- reliving them again and again in a vain attempt to master them and overcome them. That's what the theory of the repetition compulsion says.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_compulsion

As I like to say to my friend Al Gore, "You weren't destined to be President of the United States.  You were destined to win the presidency, then lose it.  And you fulfilled that destiny."