In ‘The Dark Regions of the Mind’ A Reading for the Indecent Assault in Ernest Jones's 1908 Dismissal from the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases

What is it about?

Following a medical examination, in late March 1908, Rebecca Levi, a young in-patient in the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, made a serious allegation against Dr Ernest Jones. Having discussed the matter, behind closed doors, the Hospital Committee called upon Jones to resign. Many years later Jones wrote up his account of the 1908 Affair, which his biographers and historians of psychoanalysis have accepted more or less without question. Such uncritical readings raise questions as to how the psychoanalytic community chooses to engage with the allegations of indecent (child) assault levelled against Dr Jones. Reading the contemporaneous documents, including Ian Malcolm’s letters to Jones, Dr Savill’s account of Rebecca Levi together with various other texts, reveals serious discrepancies in Jones’s narrative, thereby suggesting a far more disturbing scenario than Jones ever allowed. The paper concludes by examining the distinctions to be drawn around Jones’s sexual relationships with his adult patients as opposed to his treatment of prepubescent girls.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

In 'the Dark Regions of the Mind' is a companion piece to "Romancing with a Wealth of Detail" which was published in 2002. There are disturbing similarities between the allegations made in each of these two cases and this in turn raises a number of questions about Jones's early interest in Children's Medicine. These two papers also form part of a much wider project exploring not just the early medical career of Ernest Jones but also his role in the history and historiography of the Psychoanalytic Movement.

Perspectives