933

I

IF IN what follows, I bring any contribution to the history of the psy-
choanalytic movement, nobody must be surprised at the subjective nature
of this paper, nor at the rôle which falls to me therein. For psychoanaly-
sis is my creation; for ten years I was the only one occupied with it,
and all the annoyance which this new subject caused among my con-
temporaries has been hurled upon my head in the form of criticism.
Even today, when I am no longer the only psychoanalyst, I feel myself
justified in assuming that nobody knows better than I what psychoanaly-
sis is, wherein it differs from other methods of investigating the psychic
life, what its name should cover, or what might better be designated as
something else.

In the year 1909, when I was first privileged to speak publicly on psy-
choanalysis in an American university, fired by this momentous occa-
sion for my endeavors, I declared that it was not I who brought
psychoanalysis into existence. I said that it was Josef Breuer, who had
merited this honor at a time when I was a student and busy working for
my examinations (1880–1882).¹⁾ Since then, well-intentioned friends
have frequently repeated that I at that time expressed my gratitude to
Breuer out of all due proportion. They maintained that, as on previous
occasions, I should have dignified Breuer’s “cathartic procedure” as
a mere preliminary to psychoanalysis, and should have claimed that psy-
choanalysis itself only began with my rejection of the hypnotic tech-
nique and my introduction of free association. Now it is really a matter
of indifference whether one considers that the history of psychoanalysis
started with the cathartic method or only with my modification of the
same. I enter into this uninteresting question only because some of my
opponents of psychoanalysis are wont to recall, now and then, that the
art of psychoanalysis did not originate with me at all, but with Breuer.
Naturally, this only happens to be the case when their attitude permits

¹⁾ “On Psychoanalysis.” Five lectures given on the occasion of the twentieth anni-
versary of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., dedicated to Stanley Hall. Second
edition, 1912. Published simultaneously in English in the American Journal of
Psychology, March, 1910; translated into Dutch, Hungarian, Polish and Russian.

934

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT
them to find in psychoanalysis something that is noteworthy; on the
other hand, when they set no limit to their repudiation of psychoanaly-
sis, then psychoanalysis is always indisputably my creation. I have never
yet heard that Breuer’s great part in psychoanalysis had brought him an
equal measure of insult and reproach. As I have recognized long since
that it is the inevitable fate of psychoanalysis to arouse opposition and to
embitter people, I have come to the conclusion that I must surely be the
originator of all that characterizes psychoanalysis. I add, with satisfac-
tion, that none of the attempts to belittle my share in this much disdained
psychoanalysis has ever come from Breuer himself, or could boast of his
support.

The content of Breuer’s discovery has been so often presented that a
detailed discussion of it here may be omitted.¹ Its fundamental fact is that
the symptoms of hysterical patients depend upon impressive, but forgot-
ten scenes of their lives (traumata). The therapy founded thereon was to
cause the patients to recall and reproduce these experiences under hypno-
sis (catharsis), and the fragmentary theory deduced from it was that
these symptoms corresponded to an abnormal use of undischarged sums
of excitement (conversion). In his theoretical contribution to the “Studies
in Hysteria,” Breuer, wherever obliged to mention the term conversion,
has always added my name in parenthesis, as though his first attempt at
a theoretical formulation was my spiritual property. I think this allot-
ment refers only to the nomenclature, whilst the conception itself oc-
curred to us both at the same time.

It is also well known that Breuer, after his first experience with it,
allowed the cathartic treatment to remain dormant for a number of years
and only resumed it after I urged him to do so, on my return from Char-
cot. He was then an internist and taken up with a rather busy medical
practice. I had become a physician quite reluctantly, but was, at that
time, impelled by a strong motive to help nervous patients, or, at least, to
learn to understand something of their conditions. I had placed reliance
on physical therapy and found myself helpless in the face of the disap-
pointments that I had with W. Erb’s “Electrotherapy,” so rich in advice
and indications. If I did not, at that time, pilot myself independently to
the opinion later announced by Moebius, that the successes of electro-
therapy in nervous disorders are the results of suggestion, it was mainly
due to the fact that these promised successes failed to materialize. The
treatment by suggestion in deep hypnosis seemed to offer me at that time
sufficient compensation for the loss of confidence in electrical therapy. I
learned this treatment through the extremely impressive demonstrations
of Liébault and Bernheim. But the investigation under hypnosis with

¹Cf. Breuer and Freud: Studies in Hysteria, translated by A. A. Brill, Monograph
Series of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases.

935

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT

which I became acquainted through Breuer, I found, owing to its auto-
matic manner of working and the simultaneous gratification of one’s eager-
ness for knowledge, much more attractive than the monotonous and vio-
lent suggestive command which was devoid of every possibility of inquiry.

As one of the latest achievements of psychoanalysis, we have lately
been admonished to put the actual conflict and the cause of the illness into
the foreground of analysis. This is exactly what Breuer and I did in the
beginning of our work with the cathartic method. We guided the patient’s
attention directly to the traumatic scene in which the symptom had
arisen, we endeavored to find therein the psychic conflict, and to free the
repressed affect. We thus discovered the procedure characteristic of the
psychic processes of the neuroses which I later named regression. The
associations of the patients went back from the scene to be explained, to
earlier experiences, and forced the analysis which was to correct the pres-
ent, to occupy itself with the past. This regression led even further back-
wards. At first, it went quite regularly to the time of puberty. Later, how-
ever, such failures as gaps in the understanding tempted the analytic work
further back into the years of childhood which had, hitherto, been inacces-
sible to every sort of investigation. This regressive direction became an
important characteristic of the analysis. It was proved that psychoanaly-
sis could not clear up anything actual, except by going back to something
in the past. It even proved that every pathological experience presupposes
an earlier one, which, though not in itself pathological, lent a pathological
quality to the later occurrence. But the temptation to stop short at the
known actual cause was so great, that even in later analyses I yielded to
it. In the case of the patient called “Dora,” carried out in 1899,¹⁾ the scene
which caused the outbreak of the actual illness was known to me. I tried
uncounted times to analyze this experience, but all that I could receive to
my direct demands was the same scanty and broken description. Only
after a long detour, which led through the earliest childhood of the pa-
tient, a dream appeared in the analysis of which the hitherto forgotten
details of the scene were remembered, and this made possible the under-
standing and solution of the actual conflict.

From this one example, it may be seen how misleading is the admoni-
tion just mentioned, and how much of a scientific regression it is to follow
the advice of neglecting the regression in the analytic technique.

The first difference of opinion between Breuer and myself came to light
on a question of the more intimate psychic mechanism of hysteria. He still
favored a physiological theory, so to speak, and wished to explain the
psychic splitting of hysterics through the non-communication of various
psychic states (or states of consciousness, as we then called them). He

¹⁾Gesammelte Schriften Bd. VIII, Translation in Collected Papers, Vol. III, Hogarth
Press.

936

thus created the theory of the “hypnoid states,” the effects of which were
supposed to push the unassimilated foreign bodies into the “waking con-
sciousness.” I formulated this situation less scientifically. I perceived
everywhere tendencies and strivings analogous to those of everyday life,
and conceived the psychic splitting itself as a result of a repelling process,
which I at that time called “defense,” and later “regression.” I made a
short-lived attempt to reconcile the two mechanisms, but as experience
showed me always the same and only thing, my defense theory soon stood
in opposition to his hypnoid theory.

I am quite certain, however, that this difference of opinion had nothing
to do with the parting of the ways which occurred between us soon there-
after. The latter had a deeper reason, but it happened in such a manner
that at first, I did not understand it, and only later did I learn from many
good indications how to interpret it. It will be recalled that Breuer had
stated, concerning his first famous patient, that “the sexual element in her
make-up was astonishingly undeveloped” and had never contributed any
thing to her very marked morbid picture.¹⁾ I have always wondered why
the critics of my theory of the sexual etiology of the neuroses have not
often opposed it with this assertion of Breuer, and up to this day, I do not
know whether in this reticence I am to see a proof of their discretion, or
of their lack of observation. Whoever will reread the history of Breuer’s
patient in the light of the experience we have gained since then, will have
no difficulty in understanding the symbolism of the snakes and her rigid-
ity, and the paralysis of the arm; and by taking into account also the situ-
ation at the sick-bed of the father, he will easily guess the actual mean-
ing of that symptom-formation. His opinion as to the part sexuality played
in the psychic life of that girl will then differ greatly from that of her
physician. To cure the patient, Breuer utilized the most intensive sugges-
tive rapport, which may serve as prototype of that which we call “trans-
ference.” Now I have strong reasons for thinking that after the removal
of the symptoms, Breuer must have discovered the sexual motivations of
this transference by new signs, but that the general nature of this unex-
pected phenomenon escaped him, so that he stopped his investigation
right there, as though hit by “an untoward event.” He did not furnish
me with any direct information about this, but at different times he gave
me enough clues to justify this deduction. Later, when I emphasized more
and more the significance of sexuality in the etiology of the neuroses,
Breuer was the first to show me those reactions of resentful rejection, with
which it was my lot to become so familiar later on, but which at that time
I had not yet recognized as my inevitable destiny.

The fact that a gross sexual, tender or inimical, transference occurs in
every treatment of a neurosis, although this is neither desired nor induced

¹⁾Breuer and Freud, l.c., p. 14.

937

by either party, has always seemed to me the most unshakable proof that
the forces of the neuroses originate in the sexual life. This argument has
by no means received the serious consideration it deserved, for if it had,
there would have been no arguments. For my own conviction, it has re-
mained the decisive factor beside and above the special results of the
analytic work.

I felt some solace for the poor reception of the sexual etiology of the
neuroses even among the closer circle of my friends (an empty space soon
formed itself about my person) in the thought that I had taken up the
fight for a new and original idea. But one day my memories grouped them-
selves in such a way as to disturb this satisfaction. However, in return I
obtained an excellent insight into the origin of our activities and into the
nature of our knowledge. The idea for which I was held responsible had
not at all originated with me. It had come to me from three persons, for
whose opinions I entertained the deepest respect: from Breuer himself,
from Charcot, and from Chrobak, the gynecologist of our university,
probably the most prominent of our Vienna physicians. All three men had
imparted to me an insight which, strictly speaking, they had not them-
selves possessed. Two of them denied their communication to me when
later I reminded them of it; the third (Charcot) would have also done
so had it been granted me to see him again. But these identical communica-
tions, received without my grasping them, had lain dormant within me,
until one day they awoke apparently as an original discovery.

One day, while I was a young hospital doctor, I was accompanying
Breuer on a walk through the town when a man came up to him and ur-
gently desired to speak to him. I fell back, and when Breuer was free
again, he told me in his kindly-
teacher-
like manner, that this was the
husband of a patient who had brought some news about her. The wife, he
added, behaved in so conspicuous a manner when in company, that she had
been turned over to him for treatment as a nervous case. He ended with
the remark: “Those are always secrets of the alcove.” Astonished, I asked
him what he meant and he explained to me the word, alcove (conjugal-
bed), for he did not realize how strange this matter appeared to me.

A few years later at one of Charcot’s evening receptions, I found my-
self near the venerated teacher who was just relating to Brouardel a very
interesting history from the day’s practice. I did not hear the beginning
clearly, but gradually the story obtained my attention. It was the case of
a young married couple from the far East. The wife was a great sufferer
and the husband was impotent, or exceedingly awkward. I heard Charcot
repeat: “Tâchez donc, je vous assure vous y arriverez.” Brouardel, who
spoke less distinctly, must have expressed his astonishment that such
symptoms as those of the young wife should have appeared as a result of
such circumstances, for Charcot said suddenly and with great vivacity:

938

“Mais, dans des cas pareils, c’est toujours la chose génital, toujours–tou-
jours–toujours.” And while saying that, he crossed his hands in his lap
and jumped up and down several times, with the vivacity peculiar to him. I
know that for a moment I was almost paralyzed with astonishment, and I
said to myself, “Yes, but if he knows this, why does he never say so?” But
the impression was soon forgotten; brain anatomy and the experimental
induction of hysterical paralyses absorbed all my interests.

A year later, when I had begun my medical activities in Vienna, as a
Privatdozent of nervous diseases, I was as innocent and ignorant in all
that concerned the etiology of the neuroses as could only be expected of
a promising academician. One day I received a friendly call from Chrobak,
who asked me to take a patient to whom he could not give sufficient time
in his new capacity as lecturer at the university. I reached the patient be-
fore he did and learned that she suffered from senseless attacks of anxiety,
which could only be alleviated by the most exact information as to the
whereabouts of her physician at any time of day. When Chrobak ap-
peared, he took me aside and disclosed to me that the patient’s anx-
iety was due to the fact that although she had been married eighteen
years, she was still a virgo intacta, that her husband was utterly impotent.
In such cases there is nothing that the physician can do but cover up the
domestic misfortune with his reputation, and he must bear it if people
shrug their shoulders and say, “He is not a good doctor if in all these years
he has not been able to cure her.” He added, “The only prescription for
such troubles is the one well-known to us, but which we cannot prescribe.
It is:

Penis normalis
dosim
Repetatur!”

I had never heard of such a prescription and would like to have shaken
my head at my patron’s cynicism.

I have certainly not uncovered the illustrious origins of this wicked
idea in order to shove the responsibility for it on others. I know well that
it is one thing to express an idea once or several times in the form of a
rapid aperçu, and quite another to take it seriously and literally to lead it
through all opposing details and conquer a place for it among accepted
truths. It is the difference between a light flirtation and a righteous mar-
riage with all its duties and difficulties. Épouser les idées (to be wedded
to ideas) is, at least in French, a quite common figure of speech.

Of the other contributions that were added to the cathartic method
through my efforts, which thus transformed it into psychoanalysis, I
emphasize the following: the theories of repression and resistance, the

939

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT
installation of the infantile sexuality, and the method of dream interpre-
tation for the understanding of the unconscious.

The theory of repression I certainly worked out independently. I knew
of no influence that directed me in any way to it, and I long considered
this idea to be original until O. Rank showed us the passage in Schopen-
hauer’s “The World as Will and Idea,” where the philosopher is strug-
gling for an explanation for insanity.¹ What he states there concerning
the striving against the acceptance of a painful piece of reality agrees so
completely with the content of my theory of repression, that once again, I
must be grateful to my not being well read, for the possibility of making
a discovery. To be sure, others have read this passage and overlooked it
without making this discovery and perhaps the same would have hap-
pened to me if, in former years, I had taken more pleasure in reading philo-
sophical authors. In later years I denied myself the great pleasure of read-
ing Nietzsche’s works, with the conscious motive of not wishing to be
hindered in the working out of my psychoanalytic impressions by any
preconceived ideas. I have, therefore, to be prepared—and am so gladly
—to renounce all claim to priority in those many cases in which the
laborious psychoanalytic investigations can only confirm the insights in-
tuitively won by the philosophers.

The theory of repression is the pillar upon which the edifice of psy-
choanalysis rests. It is really the most essential part of it, and yet, it is
nothing but the theoretical expression of an experience which can be re-
peatedly observed whenever one analyses a neurotic without the aid of
hypnosis. One is then confronted with a resistance which opposes and
blocks the analytic work by causing failures of memory. This resistance
was always covered by the use of hypnosis; the history of psychoanalysis
proper, therefore, starts with the technical innovation of the rejection of
hypnosis. The theoretical value of the fact, that this resistance is con-
nected with an amnesia, leads unavoidably to that concept of unconscious
psychic activity which is peculiar to psychoanalysis, and distinguishes it
markedly from the philosophical speculations about the unconscious. It
may, therefore, be said that the psychoanalytic theory endeavors to ex-
plain two experiences, which result in a striking and unexpected manner
during the attempt to trace back the morbid symptoms of a neurotic to
their source in his life-history; viz., the facts of transference and of re-
sistance. Every investigation which recognizes these two facts and makes
them the starting-points of its work may call itself psychoanalysis, even
if it leads to other results than my own. But whoever takes up other sides
of the problem and deviates from these two assumptions will hardly
escape the charge of interfering with the rights of ownership, if he insists
upon calling himself a psychoanalyst.

¹Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, 1911, Vol. I, p. 69.

940

I would very energetically oppose any attempt to count the principles
of repression and resistance as mere assumptions instead of results of psy-
choanalysis. Such assumptions of a general psychological and biological
nature exist, and it would be quite to the point to deal with them elsewhere,
but the principle of repression is an acquisition of the psychoanalytic
work, won by legitimate means, as a theoretical extract from very nu-
merous experiences. Just such an acquisition, but of much later days, is
the theory of the infantile sexuality, of which no account was taken during
the first years of tentative analytic investigation. At first, it was merely
noticed that the effect of actual impressions had to be traced back to the
past. However, “the seeker often found more than he bargained for.”
One was lured further and further back into the past and one finally hoped
to be permitted to tarry in the period of puberty, the epoch of the tradi-
tional awakening of the sexual impulses. In vain the tracks led still further
backward into childhood and into its earliest years. On the way down
there an obstacle had to be overcome, which was almost fatal for this
young science. Under the influence of the theory of traumatic hysteria,
following Charcot, one was easily inclined to regard as real and as of
etiological importance the accounts of patients who traced back their
symptoms to passive sexual occurrences in the first years of childhood–
speaking frankly, to seductions. When this etiology broke down through
its own unlikelihood, and through the contradiction of well-established
circumstances, there followed a period of absolute helplessness. The
analysis had led by the correct path to such infantile sexual traumas, and
yet, these were not true. Thus, the basis of reality had been lost. At that
time, I would gladly have dropped the whole thing, as did my esteemed
predecessor, Breuer, when he made his unwelcome discovery. Perhaps I
persevered only because I had no longer any choice of beginning some-
thing else. Finally, I reflected that after all no one has a right to despair
if he has been disappointed in his expectations; one must merely revise
them. If hysterics trace back their symptoms to imaginary traumas, then
this new fact signifies that they create such scenes in phantasy, and hence
psychic reality deserves to be given a place next to actual reality. This
was soon followed by the conviction that these phantasies were intended
to hide the autoerotic activities of the early years of childhood, to em-
bellish and raise them to a higher level, and now the whole sexual life of
the child came to light behind these phantasies.

In this sexual activity of the first years of childhood, the congenital con-
stitution could finally also attain its rights. Disposition and experience
here became associated into an inseparable etiological unity, insofar as the
disposition raised certain impressions to inciting and fixed traumas,
which otherwise would have remained altogether banal and ineffectual,
whilst the experiences evoked factors from the disposition which, with-

941

out them, would have remained dormant and, perhaps, undeveloped. The
last word in the question of traumatic etiology was later on spoken by
Abraham, when he drew attention to the fact that the very peculiar na-
ture of the child’s sexual constitution is prone to provoke sexual expe-
riences of a peculiar kind—that is to say, traumas.¹

My formulations concerning the sexuality of the child were founded
at first almost exclusively on the results of the analyses of adults, which
led back into the past. I lacked the opportunity of direct observations on
the child. It was, therefore, an extraordinary triumph when, years later,
my discoveries were successfully confirmed for the greater part by direct
observation and analyses of very young children, a triumph that grad-
ually became tarnished on reflecting that the discovery was of such a na-
ture that one really ought to be ashamed of having made it. The deeper one
penetrated into the observations on the children, the more self-evident
this fact became, and the more strange, too, became the circumstances
that such pains had been taken to overlook it.

To be sure, so certain a conviction of the existence and significance of
the infantile sexuality can be obtained only if one follows the path of
analysis, if one goes back from the symptoms and peculiarities of neu-
rotics to their ultimate sources, the discovery of which then explains what
is explicable in them, and permits modifying whatever can be changed. I
understand that one can arrive at different conclusions if, as was recently
done by C. G. Jung, one first forms a theoretical conception of the nature
of the sexual instinct and then tries to explain thereby the life of the
child. Such a conception can only be selected arbitrarily or with regard to
secondary considerations, and runs the danger of becoming inadequate
to the sphere for which it was to be utilized. To be sure, the analytic way
also leads to certain final difficulties and obscurities in regard to sexuality
and its relation to the whole life of the individual; but these cannot be
set aside by speculations; they must wait till solutions will be found by
other observations or by observations in other spheres.

I shall briefly discuss the history of dream-interpretation. It came to
me as the first-fruits of the technical innovation when, following a dim
presentiment, I had decided to replace hypnosis with free associations. It
was not the understanding of dreams towards which my curiosity was
originally directed. I do not know of any influences which had guided my
interest to this or inspired me with any helpful expectations. Before
Breuer and I stopped collaborating, I had only just time to tell him in
one sentence that I now knew how to translate dreams. During the de-
velopment of these discoveries, the symbolism of the language of dreams
was about the last thing which became known to me, since the associations

1)Klinische Beiträge zur Psycho-
analyt. Bibliothek, Vd. X, 1921.

942

of the dreamer offer but little help for the understanding of symbols. As
I have held fast to the habit of first studying things themselves before
looking them up in books, I was, therefore, able to establish for myself
the symbolism of dreams before I was directed to it by the work of
Sherner. It was only later that I came to value fully this mode of expres-
sion in dreams. This was partly due to the influence of the works of
Steckel, who at first did very meritorious work, but later became most
perfunctory. The close connection between the psychoanalytic interpre-
tation of dreams and the once so highly esteemed art of dream interpreta-
tion of the ancients only became clear to me many years afterwards. The
most characteristic and significant portion of my dream theory, namely,
the reduction of the dream distortion to an inner conflict, to a sort of inner
dishonesty, I found later in an author to whom medicine, but not philos-
ophy was unknown. I refer to the engineer, J. Popper, who had published
his work, “Phantasies of a Realist,” under the name of Lynkeus.

The interpretation of dreams became a solace and support to me in
those difficult first years of analysis, when I had to master at the same
time the technique, the clinical material, and the therapy of the neuroses;
when I was entirely isolated and in the confusion of problems and the
accumulation of difficulties, I often feared lest I should lose my orien-
tation and my confidence. It often took a long time before the test of my
assumption, that a neurosis must become comprehensible through anal-
ysis, was seen by the perplexed patient, but the dreams, which might be
regarded as analogous to the symptoms, almost regularly confirmed this
assumption.

Only because of these successes was I able to persevere. I have, there-
fore, acquired the habit of measuring the grasp of a psychological worker
by his attitude to the problem of dream interpretation, and I have noticed
with satisfaction that most of the opponents of psychoanalysis avoided
this field altogether, or if they ventured into it, they behaved most awk-
wardly. The analysis of myself, the need of which soon became apparent
to me, I carried out by the aid of a series of my own dreams, which led me
through all the happenings of my childhood years. Even today, I am of
the opinion that in the case of a prolific dreamer and a person not too
abnormal this sort of analysis may be sufficient.

By unfurling this developmental history, I believe I have shown better
than I could have done by a systematic presentation of the subject what
psychoanalysis really is. The peculiar nature of my findings I did not at
first recognize. I sacrificed unhesitatingly my budding popularity as a
physician and a growing practice in nervous diseases because I searched
directly for the sexual origin of their neuroses. In this way, I also gained
a number of experiences which definitely confirmed my conviction of the
practical importance of the sexual factor. I appeared once unsuspiciously

943

as a speaker at the Vienna Neurological Society, then under the presidency
of Krafft-
Ebing, expecting to be compensated by the interest and recog-
nition of my colleagues for my material losses, which I voluntarily in-
curred. I treated my discoveries as ordinary contributions to science and
hoped that others would treat them in the same way. But the silence which
followed my lectures, the void that formed about my person, and the in-
sinuations directed at me, made me realize gradually that statements
concerning the rôle of sexuality in the etiology of the neuroses cannot hope
to be treated like other communications. I realized that henceforth I be-
longed to those who, according to Hebbel’s expression, “have disturbed
the world’s sleep,” and that I could not count upon being treated objec-
tively and with toleration. But as my conviction of the general accuracy
of my observations and the conclusions grew and grew, and as my faith
in my own judgment and my moral courage were by no means small, there
could be no doubt about the issue of this situation. I was imbued with
the conviction that it fell to my lot to discover particularly important
connections, and was prepared to accept the fate which sometimes ac-
companies such discoveries.

This fate I pictured to myself as follows: I should probably succeed in
sustaining myself through the therapeutic successes of the new procedure,
but science would take no notice of me during my lifetime. Some decades
later, someone would surely stumble upon the same, now untimely things,
compel their recognition and thus, bring me to honor as a forerunner,
whose misfortune was inevitable. Meanwhile, I arrayed myself as com-
fortably as possible like Robinson Crusoe on my lonely island. When I
look back to those lonely years, from the perplexities and pressure of the
present, it seems to me like a beautiful and heroic era. The “splendid iso-
lation” was not lacking in advantages and in charms, I did not have to
read any of the medical literature or listen to any ill-
informed opponents.
I was subject to no influences, and no pressure was brought to bear on me.
I learned to restrain speculative tendencies and, following the unforgotten
advice of my master, Charcot, I looked at the same things again and again
until they, themselves, began to talk to me. My publications, for which I
found shelter despite some difficulty, could safely remain far behind my
state of knowledge. They could be postponed as long as I pleased. The
Interpretation of Dreams, for example, was completed in all essentials
in the beginning of 1896, but was not written down until the summer of
1899. The analysis of “Dora” was finished at the end of 1899. The history
of her illness was completed in the next two weeks, but was not published
until 1905. In the meantime, my writings were not reviewed in the medical
periodicals, or if an exception was made, they were always treated with
scornful or pitying condescension. Now and then, a colleague would
refer to me in one of his publications, in very short and unflattering

944

terms, such as “unbalanced,” “extreme,” or “very odd.” It happened once
that an assistant at the clinic in Vienna asked me for permission to attend
one of my courses. He listened very attentively and said nothing, but after
the last lecture he offered to accompany me home. During this walk, he
informed me that, with the knowledge of his chief, he had written a book
against my views, but regretted very much that he had only become better
acquainted with them through my lectures. Had he known these before,
he would have written very differently. He had, indeed, inquired at the
clinic whether he had not better first read The Interpretation of
Dreams, but had been advised against it, as it was not worth the trou-
ble. As he now understood it, he compared the solidity of the structure of
my theory with that of the Catholic Church. In the interests of his soul’s
salvation, I will assume that this remark contained a bit of recognition.
But he concluded by saying that it was too late to alter anything in his
book, as it was already printed. This particular colleague did not consider
it necessary later on to tell the world something of the change in his
opinions of my psychoanalysis. On the contrary, as a permanent reviewer
of a medical journal, he chose rather to follow its development with
facetious comments.

Whatever personal sensitiveness I possessed was blunted in those
years, to my advantage. I was saved, however, from becoming embittered
by a circumstance that does not come to the assistance of all lonely dis-
coverers. Such a person usually torments himself with a need to discover
the cause of the lack of sympathy or of the rejection from his contem-
poraries, and perceives them as a painful contradiction against the cer-
tainty of his own conviction. That did not trouble me, for the psycho-
analytic principles enabled me to understand this attitude of my environ-
ment as a necessary consequence of fundamental analytic theories. If it
was true that the connections I had discovered were kept from the knowl-
edge of the patients by inner affective resistances, then these resistances
would be sure to manifest themselves also in normal persons as soon as
the repressed material is conveyed to them from the outside. It was not
strange that they should know how to motivate their affective rejections
of my ideas on intellectual grounds. This happened just as often in the
patients, and the arguments advanced—arguments are as common as
blackberries, as Falstaff’s speech puts it—were just the same and not
exactly brilliant. The only difference was that with patients, one had the
means of bringing pressure to bear in order to induce them to recognize
and overcome their resistances, but in the case of those seemingly normal,
such help had to be omitted. How to force these normal people to examine
the subject in a cool and scientifically objective manner was an in-
soluble problem, the solution of which was best left to time. In the his-
tory of science it has often been possible to verify that the very assertion

945

which, at first, called forth only opposition, received recognition a little
later without the necessity of bringing forward any new proofs.

That I have not developed any particular respect for the opinion of
the world or any desire for intellectual compliance during those years
when I alone represented psychoanalysis, will surprise no one.