Talk:Sophie Freud

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 04:33, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Sophie Freud, granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, criticized his theory of psychoanalysis as a "narcissistic indulgence"? Source: “Sophie Freud, who fled the Nazi onslaught in Europe and escaped to the United States, where, as a professor and psychiatric social worker, she challenged the therapeutic foundation of her grandfather Sigmund’s theories of psychoanalysis, died on Friday at her home in Lincoln, Mass. The last surviving grandchild of Sigmund Freud, she was 97”

  “I’m very skeptical about much of psychoanalysis,” she told The Boston Globe in 2002. “I think it’s such a narcissistic indulgence that I cannot believe in it.” The New York Times

  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/15 Central Park West

Created by BlackAmerican (talk), Thriley (talk), and Silver seren (talk). Nominated by Thriley (talk) at 19:59, 4 June 2022 (UTC).

• Comment: I trimmed the hook down a little bit for flow. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:42, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Assessment:

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: ALT0 approved. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

MOS:LEAD notes

Ideally, material present in the lead should be replicated in the body copy of the article. There can be some exceptions for certain quotes etc., but at present there are two quotes, the one about "narcissistic indulgence" and the "black sheep" one that appear nowhere else in the article, nor does it follow up more generally on her criticism of Freud or the 'negative impacts' on her aunt and mother. The aunt is not mentioned again either. I've approved the DYK above, but it would be good if these MOS:LEAD issues could be resolved before the article is promoted and reaches a wider audience. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Noting that "she observed how all of her female relatives, including her mother and aunt Anna, were negatively impacted by Sigmund's harmful claims about women and their internal experiences" still advances a specific POV/claim which could be conveyed to the reader without adoption by WP. How about something like "she felt that Sigmund's claims about women and their internal experiences had a harmful effect on her female relatives, including her mother and aunt Anna"? 2607:FEA8:8442:B900:D094:6D5A:652F:54BB (talk) 00:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Probably a more nuanced wording. I highly doubt she did any empirical experiments on her relatives, so her feelings on the matter are presumably what are actually at play here. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:36, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

London years?

I can't see the NYT obit, but if "during the last year of his life, when she was fifteen, she visited with him every Sunday for 15 minutes" that would have been in London (in 1938/39). She is then in the US by 1942. No more detail? The Sig. Freud article has "Freud's son Martin's wife and children left for Paris in April [1938]. Johnbod (talk) 01:51, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. It also wasn't what I originally wrote. I said that "Sophie Freud was the last surviving granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and visited with him every Sunday for 15 minutes before he died when she was 15". But that was changed in this edit by 83d40m to its current wording. Which does appear to indicate something different than what I was meaning and what I gleaned from the source. Silverseren^C 02:17, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I've put back the prior wording. It's possible that "when she was 15" might still be confusing though – maybe just "before his death" would be sufficient? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:25, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

After the latest edit, I'm now really puzzled. The edit summary is "(follow up after discussion about visits to her grandfather — separated into two sentences so he doesn't seem to have died on every Sunday after her visits :) — the visits have to have been when they both were living nearby - family departures from Vienna began in the Spring of 1938 - Sophie was in Paris in April - her grandfather arrived in Paris on June 5, departing for London on June 6 - Sophie and her mother remained in Paris until relocation to USA, she was in Boston in 1942)". "Dying every Sunday" wasn't the problem at all! If this means she only visited him in Vienna up to 1938, we should say so (plus maybe once in Paris, perhaps not on a Sunday). Staying in Paris until 1942 sounds dangerous, and unlikely. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Definitely not an improvement, not least because we seem to have now entirely lost the source that supports this. @83d40m: Your long edit summary is appreciated, but some engagement here would also probably be useful. –  (talk) 19:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Arms & Hearts Sorry, will participate here if desired. I would refrain from speculating, i.e., whether they met in June 1938 in Paris—or—how long she and her mother stayed in Paris—or—what was their next location in their relocation. I noted their final destination only, already noted in the article. Without a source, the chance of error exists. I made no notation about the interim, but documented a source that indicated that Sophie never went to London. That was the last year of her grandfather's life so I corrected the implication that she had visited him then (rephrasing my earlier edit that had been based on what existed in the article). I retained the existing data in the article, that in 1942 Sophie was in Boston. I presumed that its correctness had been reviewed when it had been included in the article and that it was our next documented date about Sophie after June 1938. My apologies, if that is incorrect. I found the chronology difficult to follow and sought to make it more consistent. I inserted the name of her mother and brother. I am uncertain about what "lost" source you note. I do not recall removing any references. If removed, data ought to appear in earlier versions of the history. There are many references about the members of this family among the several articles on them in WP that may be explored for references that might help establish a closer chronology. Is there anything else that I may clarify for you? _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 21:45, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

The source that was lost (i.e. removed by you) was the New York Times obituary, which was used to support the claim about Freud's visits to her grandfather, and now doesn't appear anywhere near that claim. It's not clear if the Cohen book now cited supports the claim as no page number is given, but I can't find anything relevant in it. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:34, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I have reviewed my edits in the history and do not find any removal by me of the NYT obit reference. In fact, one remains in my last edit.

Could you please provide what you are referring to? 83d40m (talk) 19:55, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Apologies, I misspoke slightly above. The issue isn't the NYT source, but the Star-Tribune/Newspapers.com one. In this diff you changed:

Freud was the last surviving granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and visited with him every Sunday for 15 minutes before he died when she was 15.

to

Freud was a grandchild of Sigmund Freud and she visited with him for 15 minutes on Sundays. Her father was Freud's son, Jean-Martin. Departures by various family members from Vienna began in 1938.

The citation supporting the claim about Sophie's visits to Sigmund is removed (it's cited elsewhere in the article, but needs to be cited at this point). The Cohen book is added but doesn't seem to support that claim. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:25, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I still have reservations about returning to the incorrect statement about her visiting her grandfather on "every Sunday" before he died. As I demonstrated in the edit that has been reversed, she and her grandfather were not even in the same country during the last year of his life. Therefore our article is quite misleading. Even if you dislike my phrasing, the error should not be reinstated. I even provided a reference for the edit correcting that assertion. _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 14:19, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

"[E]very Sunday" is the phrase used in the NYT obituary and Star-Tribune piece, and "before he died" is factually correct (see below), but I accept that both are potentially ambiguous. Would something like "regularly on Sundays when she was a child" work? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:26, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Certainly—that would follow my effort to rephrase this. _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 13:39, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Done, belatedly. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:14, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

References

• Well I'll tell you one thing: if my memory serves, the statement that Sophie visited Sigmund every Sunday "before he died" can't be true, because Freud spent his last years in England (to which he'd fled from Austria), while Sophie went from Austria first to France, thence to America. (This from memory, I repeat.) EEng 21:31, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

  See the top here - actually Sig. Freud was only in London from 6 June 1938 until his death on 23 Sept. 39. Johnbod (talk) 03:28, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, I'm too busy and important to read a whole thread -- I just skimmed the end bit down here. But apparently great minds like yours and mine do think alike after all. EEng 06:22, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, she didn't visit him after he died (or rather, she may have done, but that's not what we're talking about here). "Before" doesn't mean "immediately before"; "before he died" doesn't mean "in the last years of his life", just "while he was alive". But if it seems to imply that, feel free to revise as you see fit. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 14:11, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but what you're saying makes no sense whatsoever. Obviously she didn't visit Grampa Ziggy when he was dead, so if the phrase "before he died" is to have any meaning at all, that meaning can only be "up until his death, or close to it", so that is the meaning readers will naturally give it. And since that's manifestly untrue, we shouldn't be using that formulation. EEng 19:51, 25 June 2022 (UTC)