Le Président Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Portrait psychologique

Publié par French & European Pubications, le 01 octobre 1990

447 pages

Résumé

Bullitt had been psychoanalyzed by Sigmund Freud in Vienna in the 1920s. Patient & analyst became such good friends they decided to write a book together, a psychobiographical study of Woodrow Wilson. This was quite exceptional, as Freud rarely cooperated with other authors. The book, first published in Europe in the 1930s did not appear until 1967 in the U.S. When it did, many psychoanalysts doubted that Freud had had much to do with it. Recent research indicates, however, that Freud was an active co-writer. The book nevertheless received an almost unanimously hostile reception, renowned historian A. J. P. Taylor calling it a "disgrace," & concluding with the question: "How did anyone ever manage to take Freud seriously?" Freud's view of Wilson was that of a naive American politician whose foreign policy ideas were driven by religious fanaticism. Bullitt had been dismissed by Wilson late in the battle for the League of Nations. Bullitt never forgave the slight. It is not clear how much of the book was really written by Bullitt, as he was skilled in several languages, while Freud wrote only in German had died by the time it was published. Several references attributed to Freud are uniquely American, such as his introduction in which he compared Wilson's naiveté to Christian Science.

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