The Wolf Man, a.k.a.
Pankejeff was born to a wealthy family from Odessa.
In 1906, his older sister Anna died by suicide, and Pankejeff began experiencing symptoms of depression.
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In 1907, his father also died by suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills.
Soon after, Pankejeff began seeking treatment for his own depression.
In 1910, Pankejeff went to Vienna to be treated by Freud.
The full case was discussed in 1918 under the titleFrom the History of an Infantile Neurosis.
I know it was winter when I had the dream, and night-time.)
There were six or seven of them.
In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up.
My nurse hurried to my bed, to see what had happened to me.
After four years of treatment, Freud declared Pankejeff “cured,” and the man returned to Russia.
Pankejeff’s assessment of the success of his treatment was far less optimistic than Freud’s.
I am in the same state as when I came to Freud, and Freud is no more."
Freud’s version of the supposed trauma was contradicted by the Wolf Man himself, Sergei Pankejeff.
According to Pankejeff, “That was the theory, that Freud had cured me ‘100%’.
It’s all false.”
Umansky O.The Wolf Man’s Russia.American Imago.
2019;76(4):465-483.
Published March 6, 1990.
Obholzer K.Wolfman: Conversations with Freud’s Patient Sixty Years Later.
Shaw M, trans.
Continuum International Publication Group; 1982.
