A Dangerous Method Page #3

when it comes

to questions of sexuality.

And, by the way, please don't feel

you have to restrain yourself here.

My family are all veterans of the most

unsuitable topics of mealtime conversation.

I have a number of clinical examples

which I believe support my position...

with regard to sexuality.

Hm.

And how is your

little Russian patient?

As I told you, after the initial abreaction

there was the most dramatic improvement.

We've enrolled her in the

medical school at the University...

where she's doing extremely well.

She's a walking advertisement

for the effectiveness of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis.

Oh?

It's more logical.

And it sounds better.

If you say so.

Are you still treating her?

Yes, and we continue

to unearth new material.

For example, the extraordinary

procedure she devised as a small child,

where she would sit on one heel,

attempt to defecate and at the same time

try to prevent herself from defecating.

Hm.

She said this gave rise

to the most blissful feelings.

Nice story.

Those of my patients who remain

fixated at the anal stage of their...

erotic development often come out

with the most amusing details.

And, of course, all of them are

finicky, compulsively, tidy,

stubborn and extremely stingy

with money.

No doubt your Russian

conforms to this pattern.

Well, no, she doesn't.

The masochistic aspects of her condition

are much more deeply rooted...

than any anal fixations

we may have uncovered.

The two are intimately connected.

I can only tell you that she is

rather disorganized,

emotionally generous

and exceptionally idealistic.

Well, perhaps it's a Russian thing.

Is she a virgin?

Yes.

Certainly.

Mmm.

Almost certainly.

No, certainly.

Hm.

I don't think you have any notion

of the true strengths and depths...

to the opposition to our work.

There's a whole medical establishment,

of course,

baying to send Freud

to the auto-da-fe.

But that's as nothing compared to

what happens when our ideas begin...

to trickle through in whatever

garbled form they're relayed to the public.

The denials, the frenzy,

the incoherent rage.

But might that not be caused

by your insistence on the exclusively...

sexual interpretation

of the clinical material?

All I'm doing is pointing out...

what experience indicates to me

must be the truth.

And I can assure you

that in a hundred year's time,

our work will still be rejected.

Columbus, you know, had no idea

what country he'd discovered.

Like him, I'm in the dark.

All I know is I've set foot on the shore

and the country exists.

I think of you more as Galileo.

And your opponents

as those who condemned him,

while refusing even to put their eye

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