Jones, Ernest

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Jones, Ernest

Ernest Jones (1879–1958) was one of a small band of pioneers who first espoused the teachings of Freud and who succeeded in developing a world-wide organization devoted to the advancement of those ideas. From about 1906, when he first took an active interest in the new science of psychoanalysis, Jones was its acknowledged leader in the English-speaking countries.

Of the deeper motives that led him to accept this scientifically adventurous career there is little record, save a few remarks in his short volume of memoirs (1959). He was born in Rhosfelyn, Glamorgan, a village on the Gower Peninsula of south Wales. Of modest parentage (his father was a self-made man), Jones quickly absorbed the aspirations to success that prevail in impoverished and provincial principalities and that have driven the Welsh to frequent eminence. A rather puny and ailing child, he soon showed signs of precocity, went early to the village school, where he was recognized as a boy “of parts,” proceeded to Swansea Grammar School, thence to University College, Cardiff, and finally to University College Hospital in London. In 1901, at the age of 21, he received his M.B. and B.S. from the University of London and three years later his medical degree. Although he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1904, prejudice against psychoanalysis delayed his becoming a fellow of the College until 1942.

Like many other brilliant students, Jones preferred a hospital career to private practice in Harley Street. The gradual shifting of his interests, from clinical medicine to neurology and neuropathology, then to general psychiatry, and finally to psycho-analysis, is clearly indicated by the list of his appointments. After the usual post as house physician (at University College Hospital), he became clinical assistant to the Ophthalmic Hospital and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, and then registrar and pathologist at the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Finally he obtained the post of lecturer in practical neurology at the London School of Clinical Medicine. When it appeared that he could not rise further professionally in London, he emigrated, in 1908, to Canada, where the University of Toronto and the Toronto General Hospital offered him more satisfactory positions. By this time he was a full-fledged psychiatrist and had begun to experiment with psychoanalytic techniques. He had first met Freud before he moved to Canada, and when Freud came to lecture at Clark University in 1909, Jones met him a second time. After this meeting, Jones decided to devote himself exclusively to psychoanalysis and to return as soon as possible to England.

Jones’s organizational efforts on behalf of psychoanalysis were prodigious: he set up professional organizations both in America and, after his return in 1913, in England; he edited the International Journal of Psycho-analysis; and he was a leading founder of the Institute of Psycho-analysis in London and cofounder and first director of the London Clinic of Psycho-analysis. His intensive committee work on a British Medical Association inquiry into the workings of psychoanalysis led to the recognition of the science by this conservative and some-times hostile body. After this victory he played an increasingly active part in the affairs of the International Psycho-analytic Association and often acted as president, finally retiring with the honorary title of “perpetual president.”

Thoroughly versed in psychoanalytic method, Jones was at the same time closely conversant with the methodologies not only of academic psychology and sociology but also of natural science in general and organic medicine in particular. He was able to dovetail the results of his excellent research with the structure of psychoanalytical and psychological theory. Although a great deal of his early work was necessarily didactic, as for example his classic essay on dreams, he broke new ground in his monographs on suggestion, on the nature of symbolism, on anal-character formation, and on the obsessional neuroses (see Papers on Psycho-analysis, 1913).

It is possible, however, that in the long run Jones will be best remembered for his contributions to applied psychoanalysis. Here, as in his research interests, his range was extremely wide and gave him ample opportunity to display his almost obsessive erudition. His contributions to literary and artistic problems and puzzles, to the understanding of folklore and myth, of various aspects of religious belief and practice, of linguistics, and of a host of other social and cultural subjects were always illuminated by a wealth of apposite examples. Literary critics find his essay on Hamlet (1949) and his biography of Freud (1953–1957) especially noteworthy. The Freud biography, an immense compendium of facts as well as a sustained char-acterological and intellectual study, is sufficient to secure him a lasting reputation.

Keen and nimble of wit and endowed with unusual tenacity of purpose, Jones was able to over-come the inevitable setbacks to which pioneers are subject. No one could have been better suited to lead what proved to be a scientific crusade in the face of bitter and prolonged opposition. Psychoanalysis afforded him a disciplined outlet for an unusual degree of filial piety: his scientific allegiance to Freud was greatly reinforced by personal devotion, and he rendered tribute to his mentor by every expedient of scientific defense. Oblivious of unpopularity, he was more concerned with the well-being of the psychoanalytic movement than with success in professional diplomacy.

Edward Glover

[For the historical context of Jones’s work, seePsychoanalysis; and the biography ofFreud. For discussion of the subsequent development of Jones’s ideas, seeObsessive–compulsive disordersandPsychoanalysis, article onego psychology.]

WORKS BY JONES

(1913) 1948 Papers on Psycho-analysis. 5th ed. London: Baillière.

(1923) 1951 Essays in Applied Psycho-analysis. 2 vols. London: Hogarth.

1949 Hamlet and Œdipus. London: Gollancz. ? The revision of an essay published in 1910 in the American Journal of Psychology under the title “The Œdipus Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet’s Mystery.” A paperback edition was published in 1954 by Doubleday.

1953–1957 The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. 3 vols. New York: Basic Books. ? Volume 1: The Formative Years and the Great Discoveries, 1953. Volume 2: Years of Maturity, 1955. Volume 3: The Last Phase, 1957.

1959 Free Associations: Memories of a Psycho-analyst. New York: Basic Books.