959

III

“Cut it short!
On doomsday ’twon’t be worth a farthing!”
Goethe

Two years after the first congress, the second private congress of psycho-
analysts took place at Nuremberg, March, 1910. During the interval,
whilst I was still under the impression of the favorable reception in Amer-
ica, the growing hostility in Germany and the unexpected support through
the acquisition of the Zürich School, I had conceived a project which I
was able to carry out at this second congress, with the help of my friend
S. Ferenczi. I had in mind to organize the psychoanalytic movement, to
transfer its center to Zürich and place it under a head who would take
care of its future. As this found much opposition among the adherents of
psychoanalysis, I will explain my motives more fully. Thus I hope to
justify myself, even if it turns out that my action was not a very wise one.

I judged that the association with Vienna was no recommendation, but
rather an obstacle for the new movement. A place like Zürich, in the heart
of Europe, where an academic teacher had opened his institution to psy-
choanalysis, seemed to me much more promising. Moreover, I assumed
that my own person was a second obstacle. The estimate put upon my
personality was utterly confused by the favor or dislike from different
factions. I was either compared to Darwin and Kepler or reviled as a
paralytic. I, therefore, desired to push into the background not only the
city whence psychoanalysis emanated, but also my own personality.
Furthermore, I was no longer young; I saw a long road before me and I
felt oppressed by the idea that it had fallen to my lot to become a leader
in my advanced age. Yet I felt that there must be a leader. I knew only
too well what mistakes lay in wait for him who would undertake the
practice of psychoanalysis, and hoped that many of these might be
avoided if we had an authority who was prepared to guide and admonish.
Such authority naturally devolved upon me in view of the indisputable
advantage of fifteen years’ experience. It was now my desire to transfer
this authority to a younger man who would, quite naturally, take my

960

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT
place on my death. I felt that this person could be only C. G. Jung, for
Bleuler was of my own age. In favor of Jung were his conspicuous talents,
the contributions he had already made to analysis, his independent posi-
tion and the impression of energy which his personality always made. He
also seemed prepared to enter into friendly relations with me, and to give
up, for my sake, certain race prejudices which he had so far permitted
himself to indulge. I had no notion then that in spite of the advantages
enumerated, this was a very unfortunate choice; that it concerned a per-
son who, incapable of tolerating the authority of another, was still less
fitted to be himself an authority, one whose energy was devoted to the
unscrupulous pursuit of his own interests.

The formation of an official organization I considered necessary be-
cause I feared the abuses to which psychoanalysis would be subjected,
once it should achieve popularity. I felt that there should be a place that
could give the dictum: “With all this nonsense, analysis has nothing to
do; this is not psychoanalysis.” It was decided that at the meeting of the
local groups which together formed the international organization, in-
struction should be given how psychoanalysis should be practised, that
physicians should be trained there and that the local society should, in a
way, stand sponsor for them. It also appeared to me desirable that the
adherents of psychoanalysis should meet for friendly intercourse and mu-
tual support, inasmuch as official science had pronounced its great ban
and boycott against physicians and institutions practising psychoanalysis.

This and nothing else I wished to attain by the founding of the “Inter-
national Psychoanalytic Association.” Perhaps it was more than could
possibly be attained. Just as my opponents learned that it was not pos-
sible to stem the new movement, so I had to learn, by experience, that it
would not permit itself to be led along the particular path which I had
laid out for it. The motion made by Ferenczi at the Nuremberg Congress
was seconded. Jung was elected president and Riklin was chosen as secre-
tary. It was also decided to publish a correspondence journal through
which the central association was “to foster and further the science of psy-
choanalysis as founded by Freud both as pure psychology, as well as in
its application to medicine and the mental sciences, and to promote as-
sistance among the members in all their efforts to acquire and to spread
psychoanalytic knowledge.” The members of the Vienna group alone
firmly opposed the project with passionate excitement. Adler expressed
his fear that “a censorship and limitation of scientific freedom” was in-
tended. The Viennese finally gave in, after having gained their point that
Zürich should not be raised to the center of the association, but that the
center should be the home city of the president, who was to be elected for
two years.

At this congress, three local groups were constituted: one in Berlin un-

961

der the chairmanship of Abraham, one in Zürich, whose chairman became
the president of the central association, and one in Vienna, the chairman-
ship of which I relinquished to Adler. A fourth group in Budapest could
not be formed until later. On account of illness, Bleuler had been absent
from the congress. Later, he evinced considerable hesitation about enter-
ing the association and, although he let himself be persuaded to do so by
my personal representations, he resigned a short time afterwards, owing
to disagreements at Zürich. This severed the connection between the
Zürich group and the Burghölzli institution.

Another result of the Nuremberg Congress was the founding of the
Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, which caused a reconciliation between
Adler and Stekel. It had originally been intended as an opposing tendency
and was to win back for Vienna the hegemony threatened by the election
of Jung. But when the two founders of the journal, under pressure of the
difficulty of finding a publisher, assured me of their friendly intentions
and as guarantee of their attitude gave me the right to veto, I accepted the
editorship and worked vigorously for this new organ, the first number of
which appeared in September, 1910.

I will not continue the history of the Psychoanalytic Congress. The
third one took place at Weimar, September, 1911, and even surpassed the
previous ones in spirit and scientific interest. J. J. Putnam, who was
present at this meeting, later expressed in America his satisfaction and
his respect for the “mental attitude” of those present and quoted words
which I was supposed to have used in reference to the latter: “They have
learned to endure a bit of truth.” As a matter of fact, anyone who has at-
tended scientific congresses must have received a lasting impression in
favor of the Psychoanalytic Association. I myself had presided over two
former congresses. I thought it best to give every lecturer ample time for
his paper and left the discussions of these lectures to take place later as
a sort of private exchange of ideas. Jung, who presided over the Weimar
meeting, re-established the discussions after each lecture, which had not,
however, proved disturbing at that time.

Two years later, in September, 1913, quite another picture was pre-
sented by the congress at Munich which is still vividly recalled by those
who were present. It was presided over by Jung in an unamiable and in-
correct fashion: the lecturers were limited as to time and the discussion
dwarfed the lectures. Through a malicious mood of chance, the evil genius
of Hoche had taken up his residence in the same house in which the an-
alysts held their meetings. Hoche could easily have convinced himself
that his characterization of these psychoanalysts, as a sect blindly and
meekly following their leader, was true ad absurdum. The fatiguing and
unedifying proceedings ended in the re-election of Jung as president of
the International Psychoanalytic Association, which fact Jung accepted,

962

although two-fifths of those present refused him their support. We took
leave from one another without feeling the need to meet again!

About the time of this third Congress, the condition of the International
Psychoanalytic Association was as follows: The local groups at Vienna,
Berlin and Zürich had constituted themselves already at the congress at
Nuremberg in 1910. In May, 1911, a group, under the chairmanship of
Dr. L. Seif, was added at Munich. In the same year, the first American
local group was formed under the chairmanship of A. A. Brill under the
name of “The New York Psychoanalytic Society.” At the Weimar Con-
gress, the founding of a second American group was authorized. This came
into existence during the next year as “The American Psychoanalytic
Association.” It included members from Canada and all America; Putnam
was elected president and Ernest Jones was made secretary. Just before
the congress at Munich in 1913, a local group was founded at Budapest
under the leadership of S. Ferenczi. Soon afterwards, Jones, who settled
in London, founded the first English group. The number of members of
the eight groups then in existence could not, of course, furnish any stand-
ard for the computation of the non-organized students and adherents of
psychoanalysis.

The development of the periodical literature of psychoanalysis is also
worthy of a brief mention. The first periodical publications serving the
interests of analysis were the Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunden
which have appeared irregularly since 1907 and have reached the fifteenth
volume.¹⁾ They published writings by Freud, Riklin, Jung, Abraham,
Rank, Sadger, Pfister, M. Graf, Jones, Storfer and Hug-Helmuth. The
founding of the Imago, to be mentioned later, has somewhat lowered the
value of this form of publication. After the meeting at Salzburg, 1908, the
Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen
was founded, which appeared under Jung’s editorship for five years, and
it has now reappeared under new editorship and under the slightly
changed title of Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse. It no longer wishes to be,
as in former years, merely an archive for collecting works of psycho-
analytic merit, but it wishes to justify its editorial task by taking due
notice of all occurrences and all endeavors in the field of psychoanalysis.
As mentioned before, Das Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse started by Ad-
ler and Stekel after the founding of the “International Association” (Nu-
remberg, 1910), went through in a short time a very varied career. Al-
ready in the tenth issue of the first volume, there was an announcement
that in view of scientific difference of opinion with the editors, Dr. Adler
had decided voluntarily to withdraw his collaboration. This placed the
entire editorship in the hands of Dr. Stekel (summer of 1911). At the

¹⁾Dreams and Myths, Wish-Fulfilment and Fairy Tales, Myth of a Birth of the
Hero, in this series are translated in the Monograph Series.

963

History of the Psychoanalytic Movement

Weimar Congress, the Zentralblatt was raised to the official organ of the
“International Association,” and by increasing the annual dues, it was
made accessible to all members. Beginning with the third number of the
second year (winter, 1912) Stekel alone became responsible for the con-
tents of the journal. His behavior, which is difficult to explain in public,
forced me to sever all my connections with this journal and to give psy-
choanalysis in all haste a new organ, the International Journal for Medical
Psychoanalysis (Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse).
With the help of almost all my collaborators and the new publisher H.
Heller, the first number of this new journal made its appearance in Janu-
ary, 1913, to take the place of the Zentralblatt as the official organ of the
“International Psychoanalytic Association.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Hanns Sachs and Dr. Otto Rank founded early in
1912 a new journal, Imago (published by Heller), whose only aim is the
application of psychoanalysis to mental sciences. Imago has now reached
the middle of its third year and enjoys the increasing interest of readers
who are not medically interested in psychoanalysis.

Apart from these four periodical publications (Schriften z. Angew-
andten Seelenkunde, Jahrbuch, Intern. Zeitschrift, and Imago) other
German and foreign journals have contributed works that can claim a
place in psychoanalytic literature. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology
published by Morton Prince, as a rule, contains many good analytical
contributions. In the winter of 1913, Dr. White and Dr. Jelliffe started a
journal exclusively devoted to psychoanalysis, The Psychoanalytic Re-
view, which took into account the fact that most physicians in America
interested in psychoanalysis did not master the German language.

I am now obliged to speak of two secessions which have taken place
among the followers of psychoanalysis. The first of these took place in
the interval between the founding of the association in 1910 and the Con-
gress at Weimar, 1911; the second took place after this and came to light
in Munich in 1913. The disappointment which they caused me might have
been avoided if more attention had been paid to the mechanisms of those
who undergo analytical treatment. I was well aware that anyone might
take flight on first approach to the unlovely truths of analysis; I myself
had always asserted that anyone’s understanding may be suspended by
one’s own repressions (through the resistances which sustain them), so
that in his relation to psychoanalysis he cannot get beyond a certain
point. But I had not expected that anyone who had mastered analysis to
a certain depth could renounce this understanding and lose it. And yet,
daily experience with patients had shown that the total rejection of all
knowledge gained through analysis may be brought about by any deeper
stratum of particularly strong resistance. Even if we succeed through
laborious work in causing such a patient to grasp parts of analytic knowl-
edge.

264

edge and handle these as his own possessions, it may well happen that
under the domination of the next resistance, he will throw to the winds all
he has learned and will defend himself as in his first days of treatment. I
had to learn that this can happen among psychoanalysts, just as among
patients during treatment.

It is no enviable task to write the history of these two secessions, partly
because I am not impelled to it by strong personal motives—I had not
expected gratitude nor am I to any active degree revengeful—and partly
because I know that I hereby lay myself open to the invectives of op-
ponents manifesting but little consideration, and at the same time, I
regale the enemies of psychoanalysis with the long wished-for spectacle
of seeing the psychoanalysts tearing each other to pieces. I had to exercise
much control to keep myself from fighting with the opponents of psycho-
analysis, and now I feel constrained to take up the fight with former
followers or such as still wish to be called so. I have no choice: to keep
silent would be comfortable or cowardly, but it would hurt the subject
more than the frank uncovering of the existing evils. Anyone who has fol-
lowed the growth of scientific movements will know that quite similar
disturbances and dissentions took place in all of them. It may be that else-
where they are more carefully concealed. However, psychoanalysis, which
denies many conventional ideas, is also more honest in these things.

Another very palpable inconvenience lies in the fact that I cannot alto-
gether avoid going into an analytic elucidation. Analysis is not, however,
suitable for polemic use; it always presupposes the consent of the one
analyzed and the situation of a superior and subordinate. Therefore, he
who wishes to use analysis with polemic intent must offer no objection if
the person so analyzed will, in his turn, use analysis against him, and if
the discussion merges into a state in which the awakening of a conviction
in an impartial third party is entirely excluded. I shall, therefore, make
here the smallest possible use of analysis, thereby limiting my indiscretion
and aggression against my opponents, and I will also add that I base no
scientific criticism on this means. I have nothing to do with the possible
substance of truths in the theories to be rejected, nor am I seeking to re-
fute the same. This task may be left to other able workers in the field of
psychoanalysis, and some of it has already been done. I only desire to
show that these theories deny the basic principles of analysis—I will show
in what points—and for this reason, should not be known under this
name. I shall, therefore, use analysis only to make clear how these devia-
tions from analysis could take place among analysts. At the parting places
I am, of course, obliged to defend the just rights of psychoanalysis with
purely critical remarks.

Psychoanalysis has found as its first task the explanation of the neu-
roses; it has taken the two facts of resistance and transference as starting

963

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT

points, and by bearing in mind the third fact of amnesia in the theories of
repression, it has given justification to the sexual motive forces of the
neuroses, and of the unconscious. Psychoanalysis has never claimed to give
a perfect theory of the human psychic life, but has only demanded that its
discoveries should be used for the completion and correction of knowledge
we have gained elsewhere. But Alfred Adler’s theory goes far beyond
this goal. It pretends to explain with one stroke the behavior and char-
acter of men as well as their neurotic and psychotic maladies. As a matter
of fact, Adler’s theory is more adequate to any other field than to that of
the neuroses, which he still puts in the first place because of the history of
it origin. I had the opportunity of studying Dr. Adler many years and
have never denied him the testimonial of having a superior mind, espe-
cially endowed speculatively. As proof of the “persecution” which he
claims to have suffered at my hands, I can only say that after the forma-
tion of the Association, I handed over to him the leadership of the Vienna
group. It was only after urgent requests from all the members of the so-
ciety that I could be prevailed upon to resume the presidency at the
scientific proceedings. When I had recognized Dr. Adler’s slight talent for
the estimation of the unconscious material, I expected that he would know
how to discover the connections between psychoanalysis and psychology
and the biological bases of the impulses, a discovery to which he was en-
titled, in a certain sense, through his valuable studies about the inferiority
of organs. He really did bring out something, but his work makes the im-
pression as if—to speak in his own jargon—it were intended to prove that
psychoanalysis was wrong in everything and that the significance of the
sexual impelling forces could only be due to gullibility about the asser-
tions of neurotics. Of the personal motive of his work I may also speak
publicly, since he himself revealed it in the presence of a small circle of
members of the Vienna group. “Do you believe,” he remarked, “that it is
such a great pleasure for me to stand in your shadow my whole life?” To
be sure, I see nothing objectionable in the fact that a younger man should
frankly admit an ambition which one might, in any case, suspect as one of
the incentives of his work. But even under the domination of such a
motive, a man should know how to avoid being “unfair” as designated by
the English with their fine social tact. We Germans have only a much
coarser word at our disposal to convey this idea. How little Adler has
succeeded in not being unfair is shown by the great number of mean out-
bursts of anger which distort his writings, and by the feeling of an un-
governable mania for priority which pervades his work. At the Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society, we once heard him claim for himself the priority
for the viewpoints of the “unity of the neuroses” and the “dynamic con-
ception” of the same. This was a great surprise for me, as I had always

966

believed that I had represented these two principles before I had ever
known Adler.¹

This striving of Adler for a place in the sun has brought about, how-
ever, one result, which must be considered beneficial to psychoanalysis.
When I was obliged to bring about Adler’s resignation from the editorial
staff of the Zentralblatt, after the appearance of his irreconcilable scien-
tific antagonisms, Adler also left the Vienna group and founded a new
society to which he first gave the tasteful name “Society for Free Psycho-
analysis.” But the outside public, unacquainted with analysis, is evidently
as little skilled in recognizing the difference between the views of two
psychoanalysts, as are Europeans in recognizing the tints between two
Chinese faces. The “free” psychoanalysis remained in the shadow of the
“official” and “orthodox” one, and was treated only as an appendage of
the latter. Then Adler took the step for which we are thankful. He severed
all connection with psychoanalysis and named his teachings “The Indi-
vidual Psychology.” There is much space on God’s earth, and anyone who
can is surely justified in tumbling about upon it uninhibited; but it is not
desirable to continue living under one roof when people no longer under-
stand one another and no longer get on together. Adler’s “Individual
Psychology” is now one of the many psychological movements opposed to
psychoanalysis, and its further development lies outside our interests.
Adler’s theory was from the very beginning a “system,” which psycho-
analysis was careful not to become. It is also an excellent example of a
“secondary elaboration” as seen, for example, in the process which the
waking thought produces in dream material. In this case the dream mate-
rial is replaced by the material recently acquired from psychoanalytic
studies, which is then relegated to the viewpoint of the ego, and brought
under the familiar categories of the same. It is then translated, twirled,
and as thoroughly misunderstood as happens in dream formation. Adler’s
theory is thus characterized less by what it asserts than by what it denies.
It consequently consists of three elements of quite dissimilar value: first,
good contributions to the psychology of the ego, which are superfluous
but admissible; secondly, translations of analytical facts into new jargon,
and thirdly, distortions and twistings of these facts when they do not fit
into his ego theories. The elements of the first kind have never been ig-
nored by psychoanalysis, although they required no special attention.
Psychoanalysis has a greater interest in showing that all ego strivings are
mixed with libidinal components. Adler’s theory emphasizes the counter-
part to it; namely, that all libidinal feeling contains an admixture of
egotism. This would have been a palpable gain if Adler had not made use

1 Adler’s “Inferiority of Organs,” translated by Jelliffe, appears as Monograph 24.
His “Nervous Character,” translated by Glueck and Lind, published by Moffat Yard
& Co., New York.

967

of this assertion to deny, every time, the libidinal feelings in favor of the
impelling ego components. His theory thus does exactly what all patients
do, and what our conscious thinking always does; it rationalizes, as Jones
would say, in order to conceal the unconscious motives. Adler is so con-
sistent in this, that he considers the desire to dominate the woman, to be
on the top, as the mainspring of the sexual act. I do not know if he has
upheld this monstrous idea in his writings.

Psychoanalysis early recognized that every neurotic symptom owes its
existence to some compromise. The symptom must, therefore, also take
some account of the demands of the ego, which controls the repression by
offering it some advantages, some useful application; otherwise, it would
suffer the same fate as the original impulse which the ego must ward off.
The term, “morbid gain,” expresses this state of affairs. One might even
be justified in differentiating the ego’s primary gain, which must already
be active in the beginning, from a “secondary” gain, which appears in con-
nection with other intentions of the ego, when the symptom is about to
assert itself. It has also long been known in analysis that the withdrawal
of this morbid gain, or the cessation of the same as a result of some real
change, constitutes one of the mechanisms of curing the symptom. On
these relationships, which are easily verified and clearly understood,
Adler’s theory puts the greatest emphasis, while it entirely overlooks the
fact that on innumerable occasions the ego makes a virtue out of necessity
in submitting to the most undesirable symptom forced upon it, because
of the use it can make of it, e.g., when the ego accepts anxiety as a means
to security. Here, the ego plays the absurd part of the clown in the circus,
who, through his gestures, wishes to convey to the spectators the impres-
sion that all changes in the ring are taking place at his command. But
only the youngest among the spectators believe him.

For the second part of Adler’s theory, psychoanalysis must stand secur-
ity as for its own possessions. For it is nothing but psychoanalytic knowl-
edge, which the author had from all the sources opened to him during ten
years of our joint work, which he later marked as his own after changing
the nomenclature. For instance, I, myself, consider “security” a better
word than “protective measure,” which I considered using, but cannot
find in it any new meaning. Similarly, one will find in Adler’s statements
a great many well known features if one will replace his expressions
“feigned” (fingiert) “fictive,” and “fiction,” by the original words, “to
phantasy” and “phantasy.” This identity would be emphasized by psy-
choanalysis, even if the author had not for many years participated in
our common work.

The third part of Adler’s theory, the misinterpretations and distor-
tions of the disagreeable facts of psychoanalysis, contains that which defi-
nitely severs “Individual Psychology” from psychoanalysis. As is known,

968

the principle of Adler’s system states that it is the object of the self-
assertion of the individual, his “will to power” in the form of the “mascu-
line protest,” to manifest itself domineeringly in the conduct of life, in
character formation, and in the neurosis. This “masculine protest,” the
Adlerian motor, is, however, nothing else but the repression detached from
its psychological mechanism, which is, moreover, sexualized in addition.
This is hardly in keeping with Adler’s vaunted expulsion of sexuality
from its place in psychic life. The “masculine protest” certainly exists,
but in constituting it as the motor of the psychic life, observation has only
played the part of the springboard, which one ‘eaves in order to raise one’s
self. Let us consider one of the most fundamental situations of infantile
wishing, namely, the child’s desire to observe the sexual act between
adults. When the life-history of such persons is later subjected to analy-
sis, it is found that at that moment, the minor spectator was swayed by
two feelings; one, in the case of a boy, to put himself in the place of the
active man, and the other, the opposing feeling, to identify himself with
the suffering woman. Both strivings conjointly exhaust the pleasure that
might have resulted from this situation. Only the first feeling can come
under the head of the “masculine protest,” if this idea is to retain any
meaning at all. The second feeling, whose fate Adler either ignores or
does not know, is really the one which assumes greater importance in the
later neurosis. Adler has so thoroughly transplanted himself into the
jealous restrictions of the ego, that he takes account only of those im-
pulsive feelings which are agreeable to the ego and furthered by it; but
the case of the neurosis, which opposes these strivings, lies beyond his
horizon.

Adler’s most serious deviations from the reality of observation and his
deepest confusion of ideas have arisen in his attempt to correlate the
basic principle of his theory with the psychic life of the child, an attempt
which has become inevitable in psychoanalysis. The biological, social, and
physiological meanings of “masculine” and “feminine” have thereby
merged into a hopeless mixture. It is quite impossible to assume—and
easily disproved by observation—that the masculine or feminine child
builds his plan of life on an original depreciation of the feminine sex; nor
is it conceivable that a child can take as his guiding principle the wish:
“I will be a real man.” In the beginning, the child has no inkling of the
significance of the difference in sex; more likely he starts with the assump-
tion that both sexes possess the same (male) genital. He does not begin
his sexual investigation with the problem of sex differentiation and is far
from entertaining any social depreciation of the woman. There are women
in whose neurosis the wish to be a man has never played any part. What
we know of the “masculine protest” is easily traceable to a disturbance in
the primary narcissism caused by the castration threat; that is, by the

969

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT

first hindrances to the sexual activity. All dispute as to the psychogenesis
of the neuroses must ultimately be decided in the sphere of the neuroses
of childhood. Careful analysis of a neurosis of the early years of child-
hood puts an end to all errors and doubts as to the etiology of the neuroses
and as to the part played by the sexual instinct. That is why Adler, in his
criticism of Jung’s “Conflicts of the Child’s Mind” was obliged to resort
to the imputation that the material of the case must have been arranged
to conform to some tendency, “probably by the father.”¹⁾

I will not linger any longer on the biological side of Adler’s theory, and
will not examine whether the actual inferiority of organs or the subjec-
tive feeling of the same (one often cannot tell which) is really capable of
sustaining the foundation of Adler’s system. May I only be permitted to
remark that this concept would make the neurosis a by-product of stunt-
ing in general, whereas observation teaches that an excessively large num-
ber of ugly, misshapen, crippled, and wretched creatures fail to react to
their deficiencies by developing a neurosis. Nor will I discuss the interest-
ing information that the sense of inferiority goes back to infantile feel-
ings. This shows in what disguise the factor of infantilism, so much em-
phasized in psychoanalysis, returns in Adler’s Individual Psychology. On
the other hand, I feel obliged to emphasize how all psychological acqui-
sitions of psychoanalysis have been thrown to the winds by Adler. In his
book, The Nervous Character, the unconscious still appears as a psy-
chological peculiarity, but without any relation to his system. Later, he
declared, quite logically, that it was a matter of indifference to him
whether any conception be conscious or unconscious. From the very be-
ginning Adler never evinced any understanding for the principle of re-
pressions. While reviewing a lecture before the Vienna Society in 1911,
he said: “On the strength of a case, I wish to point out that the patient
had never repressed his libido, against which he continually tried to secure
himself.”²⁾ Soon thereafter, at a discussion in Vienna Adler said: “If you
ask whence comes the repression, you are told: from culture. But if you
ask whence comes culture, the reply is: from the repression. So you see it
is only a question of a play on words.” A small fragment of the wisdom
used by Adler to unmask the defensive tricks of his “nervous character”
might have sufficed to show him the way out of this pettifogging argu-
ment. There is nothing mysterious about it, except that culture depends
upon the acts of repression of former generations, and that each new gen-
eration is required to retain this culture by carrying out the same repres-
sions. I have heard of a child who considered himself fooled and began to
cry because to the question: “Where do eggs come from?”, he received the

¹⁾ Zentralb., Vol. I, p. 122, See “Analytical Psychology,” Moffat Yard and Co., New
York.

²⁾ Korrespondenzbl., No. 5, Zurich, April, 1911.

970

answer, “Eggs come from hens,” and to the further question: “Where
do the hens come from?”, the information was: “From the eggs,” and yet,
this was not a play upon words. On the contrary, the child had been told
the truth.

Just as pitiful and devoid of substance is all that Adler asserted about
the dream—the shibboleth of psychoanalysis. First, he considered the
dream as a turning from the masculine to the feminine line, which is
simply a translation of the wish-fulfillment theory of dreams into the
language of the “masculine protest.” Later, he found that the essence of
the dream lies in the fact that it enables man to realize unconsciously
what is denied him consciously. Adler must also be credited with priority
of confounding the dream with the latent dream-thoughts, on the cog-
nition of which rests his idea of “prospective tendency.” Maeder followed
him in this, later on. In doing so, he readily overlooks the fact that every
interpretation of the dream, which really tells nothing comprehensible in
its manifest appearance, rests upon the same dream-interpretations, whose
assumptions and conclusions he is disputing. Concerning resistance,
Adler asserts that it serves to strengthen the patient against the physician.
This is certainly correct; it is as much to say that it serves the resistance.
But whence this resistance originates, and how it happens that its phe-
nomena serve the patient’s interest, these questions, as if of no interest for
the ego, are not further discussed by Adler. The detailed mechanisms of
symptoms and phenomena, the motivation of the variety of diseases and
morbid manifestations, find no consideration whatever in Adler, since
everything is equally subservient to the “masculine protest,” to self-asser-
tion and to the exaltation of the personality. The system is complete at
the expense of an extraordinary amount of new interpretation. Yet, it has
not contributed a single new observation. I believe that I have succeeded
in showing that his system has nothing whatever in common with psycho-
analysis.

The view of life which one obtains from Adler’s system is founded en-
tirely upon the impulse of aggression. It leaves no room at all for love.
One might wonder that such a cheerless aspect of life should have re-
ceived any notice whatever; but we must not forget that humanity, op-
pressed by its sexual needs, is prepared to accept anything, if only the
“overcoming of sexuality” is held out as bait.

The secession of Adler’s faction was finished before the Congress at
Weimar which took place in 1911, while the one of the Swiss School be-
gan after this date. Strangely enough, the first indications of it were
found in some remarks by Riklin in popular articles printed in Swiss
journals, from which the general public learned, even before Riklin’s
closest colleagues, that psychoanalysis had succeeded in overcoming some
regrettable mistakes, which discredited it. In 1912, Jung boasted, in a

971

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT
letter to me from America, that his modifications of psychoanalysis had
overcome the resistances to it in many persons, who hitherto wanted to
know nothing about it. I replied that this was nothing to boast about, that
the more he sacrificed of the hard won truths of psychoanalysis, the less
resistances he would encounter. This modification, for the introduction of
which the Swiss were so proud, again was nothing more or less than the
theoretical suppression of the sexual factor. I admit that from the very
beginning, I have regarded this “progress” as a too far-
reaching adapta-
tion to the demands of actuality.

These two retrogressive movements, tending away from psychoanaly-
sis, which I shall now compare, also resemble each other in the fact that
they were seeking to obtain a favorable opinion by means of certain lofty
points of view, as if they were sub specie aeternitatis. In the case of Adler,
this rôle is played by the relativity of all knowledge, and the right of the
personality to construct artificially the substance of knowledge to suit
the individual; while Jung insists on the cultural historic right of youth
to throw off any fetters that tyrannical old age with ossified views would
forge for it. These arguments require some repudiation. The relativity of
all our knowledge is a consideration which may be used as an argument
against any other science, as well as against psychoanalysis. It originates
from well-known reactionary currents of the present day, which are inimi-
cal to science, and strives to give the appearance of superiority to which
we are not entitled. Not one among us can guess what may be the ultimate
judgment of mankind about our theoretical efforts. There are examples
to show that what was rejected by the next three generations was cor-
rected by the fourth, and thus changed into recognition. There is nothing
else for the individual to do but to defend, with all his strength, his con-
viction based on experience after he has carefully listened to his own criti-
cisms and has given some attention to the criticisms of his opponents. Let
him be content to conduct his affair honestly and not assume the office
of judge, which must be reserved for the remote future. To emphasize
personal arbitrariness in scientific matters is bad; it evidently is an at-
tempt to deny to psychoanalysis the value of a science, which, to be sure,
has already been depreciated by the previous remark. Anyone who highly
regards scientific thinking will rather seek for means and methods to re-
strict, if possible, the factor of personal and artificial arbitrariness, wher-
ever it still plays too large a part. Besides, one must remember that all zeal
to defend is out of place. Adler does not take these arguments seriously.
They are only meant to be used against his opponents, respecting, how-
ever, his own theories. They have not prevented Adler’s own followers
from hailing him as the Messiah, for whose appearance waiting humanity
had been prepared by so and so many forerunners. The Messiah is surely
no longer anything relative.

972

Jung’s argument ad captandam benevolentiam rests on the all too opti-
mistic assumption that the progress of humanity, of civilization, and of
knowledge has always continued in an unbroken line, as if there had
never been any epigones, reactions, and restorations after every revolu-
tion, as if there had been no races, who, through a retrogression, rejected
the gain of former generations. The approach to the standpoint of the
masses, the giving up of an innovation that has proved unpopular, make
it improbable from the beginning that Jung’s correction of psychoanaly-
sis could justly claim to be a liberation for youth. Finally, it is not the
years of the doer that decide this, but the character of the deed.

Of the two movements under consideration here, Adler’s is undoubtedly
the more important. Though radically false, it is, nevertheless, charac-
terised by consistency and coherence, and it is still founded on the theory
of the instincts. On the other hand, Jung’s modification has slackened the
connection between the phenomena and the instinctive-life; besides as its
critics (Abraham, Ferenczi, Jones) have already pointed out, it is so un-
intelligible, muddled and confused, that it is not easy to take any atti-
tude towards it. Wherever one touches it, one must be prepared to be told
that one has misunderstood it, and it is impossible to know how one can
arrive at a correct understanding of it. It represents itself in a peculiarly
vacillating manner, since at one time it calls itself “a quite tame devia-
tion, not worthy of the row which has arisen about it” (Jung); yet, at
another time, it calls itself a new message of salvation which is to begin
a new epoch in psychoanalysis; indeed, a new philosophy of life for
everything else.

When one thinks of the disagreements between Jung’s various private
and public utterances, one is obliged to ask to what extent this is due
to his own lack of clearness and how much to a lack of sincerity. It must
be admitted, however, that the representatives of the new theory find
themselves in a difficult position. They are now disputing things which
they, themselves, formerly defended and what is more, this dispute is not
based on new observations, which might have taught them something
fresh, but rather on a different interpretation which makes them see things
in a different light than before. It is for this reason that they are unwill-
ing to give up their connection with psychoanalysis, as the representatives
of which they first became known to the world, and prefer to proclaim that
psychoanalysis has changed. At the Congress of Munich, I was obliged
to clear up this confusion and did so by declaring that I could not recog-
nize the innovation of the Swiss School as a legitimate continuation and
further development of the psychoanalysis which originated with me.
Outside critics (like Furtmüller) had already recognized this state of
affairs and Abraham truly states that Jung is in full retreat from psycho-
analysis. I am naturally perfectly willing to admit that anyone has the

973

right to think and write what he likes, but he has not right to give it out
as something different from what it really is.

Just as Adler’s researches brought something new into psychoanalysis,
a contribution to the ego-psychology, and then wished to be paid only too
dearly for this gift by repudiating all the fundamental analytic principles,
so in the same way Jung and his adherents have based their fight against
psychoanalysis upon a new contribution to the same. They have traced
in detail (what Pfister did before them) how the material of the sexual
ideas, originating in the family complex and in incestuous object selec-
tion, can be used to represent the highest ethical and religious interests
of mankind—that is, they have explained a remarkable case of sublima-
tion of the erotic instinctual forces and their transformation into striv-
ings that can no longer be called erotic. All this was in perfect agreement
with all the expectations of psychoanalysis, and would have agreed very
well with the conception that in the dream and in the neurosis, one sees
the regressive dissolutions of these and of all other sublimations. But the
world would have indignantly exclaimed that they were sexualizing ethics
and religion. I cannot help assuming finally that these discoverers
found themselves quite unequal to the storm of indignation they had
to face. Perhaps, the storm began to rage also in their own bosoms.
The previous theological history of so many of the Swiss workers is
as important in their attitude to psychoanalysis as the socialistic record
of Adler for the development of his “psychology.” One is reminded of
Mark Twain’s famous story about the vicissitudes of his watch and of the
speculative remark with which he ends it: “And he used to wonder what
became of all the unsuccessful tinkers and gunsmiths and shoemakers and
blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.”

I will encroach upon the realm of parables and will assume that in a
certain society there lived an upstart who boasted of descent from a very
noble family not locally known. But it so happened that it was proved
to him that his parents were living somewhere in the neighborhood and
were very simple people indeed. Only one way out remained to him and
he seized upon it. He could no longer deny his parents, but he asserted that
they were very aristocratic by origin, but were much reduced in circum-
stances, and secured for them at some obliging office a document showing
their descent. It seems to me that the Swiss workers had been obliged to
act in a similar manner. If ethics and religion could not be sexualized,
but must be regarded as something “higher” from the very beginning,
and as their origin from the family and Œdipus complexes seemed un-
deniable, then there was only one way out: the complexes themselves
could not from the beginning have had the significance which they seemed
to express, but must have that higher “anagogic” sense (to use Silberer’s

974

nomenclature) which adapts them for proper use in the abstract streams
of thought, of ethics, and religious mysticism.

I am quite prepared to be told again that I have misunderstood the con-
tents and object of the New-Zürich School theory, but I wish to protest
from the beginning against being held responsible for those contradic-
tions to my theories that have arisen from the publications of this school.
The burden of responsibility rests on them, not on me. In no other way
can I make comprehensible to myself the ensemble of Jung’s innovations
or grasp their connection. All the changes which Jung has brought into
psychoanalysis originated from his intention to eliminate all that is ob- jectionable in the family complexes, in order that it may not be found
again in religion and ethics. The sexual libido was replaced by an abstract
idea, concerning which it may be said that it remained equally mysterious
and incomprehensible alike to fools and wise. The Œdipus complex, we
are told, has only a “symbolical” sense, the mother therein representing
the unattainable which must be renounced in the interests of cultural de-
velopment. The father who is killed in the Œdipus myth represents the
“inner” father, from whose influence we must free ourselves in order to
become independent. No doubt, other portions of the material of sexual
ideas will, in time, surely undergo similar new interpretations. In place
of the conflict between erotic strivings adverse to the ego and the self-
assertion, we are given the conflict between the “life-task” and the “psy-
chic laziness.” The neurotic feeling of guilt corresponds to the reproach
of not properly fulfilling one’s life-task. Thus, a new religio-ethical system
was founded, which exactly like Adler’s, was forced to new interpreta-
tions, distortions and eliminations of the actual results of analysis. As a
matter of fact, they have caught a few cultural overtones from the sym-
phony of life, but once more have failed to hear the most powerful melody
of the impulses.

In order to hold this system together, it was necessary to draw away en-
tirely from the observations and technique of psychoanalysis. Now and
then, the enthusiasm for the higher cause even permits a total disregard
for scientific logic, as for instance, when Jung maintains that the “Œdipus
complex” is not “specific” enough for the etiology of the neuroses, and
ascribed this specificity to laziness; that is, to the most universal quality
of animate and inanimate bodies! It is, moreover, remarked that the
“Œdipus complex” only represents a content in which the psychic forces
of the individual are measured, and is not in itself a force, like the “psy-
chic laziness.” The study of the individual man has shown and always will
show that the sexual complexes are alive in him in their original sense.
That is why the study of the individual was pushed back by Jung and re-
placed by the conclusions drawn from the study of racial history. As the
study of the early childhood of man offers the greatest likelihood of en-

975

countering the original and undisguised meaning of these misinterpreted
complexes, Jung made it a rule to direct as little as possible of the therapy
to this past and to place the greatest emphasis on the return to the cur-
rent conflict, where, however, the essential thing is not at all the inci-
dental and personal, but rather the general or the “non-fulfillment of the
life-task.” We know, however, that the actual conflict of the neurotic
becomes comprehensible and capable of solution only if it can be traced
back to the patient’s past history, and by following the path which his
libido took when his neurosis started.

How the New Zürich therapy has shaped itself under such tendencies, I
can convey by means of reports of a patient who was himself forced to
experience it. “Not the slightest consideration was given at this time to
the past or the transference. Whenever I thought that the latter was
touched, it was explained as a mere symbol of the libido. The moral teach-
ings, which were very beautiful, I followed faithfully, but I did not ad-
vance one step. This was more distressing to me than to the physician, but
how could I help it? Instead of freeing me analytically, each session made
new and tremendous demands on me, on which fulfillment the overcoming
of the neurosis was supposed to depend. Some of these demands were:
inner concentration by means of introversion, religious meditation, living
with my wife in loving devotion, etc. It was almost beyond my power,
since it really amounted to a radical transformation of the whole spirit-
ual man. I left the analysis as a poor sinner with the strongest feelings of
contrition and the very best resolutions, but at the same time, with the
deepest discouragement. All that this physician recommended any clergy-
man would have advised, but where was I to find the strength?” It is true
that the patient had also heard that an analysis of the past and of the
transference should precede this process. He was, however, told that he
had already had enough of that. But since it had not helped him, it seems
to me that it is just to conclude that the patient had not had enough of
this first sort of analysis. Not in any case has the superimposed treatment,
which no longer has the slightest claim to call itself psychoanalysis,
helped. It is a matter of wonder that the men of Zürich should have taken
the long detour via Vienna to reach Berne, which is so near to them, where
Dubois cures neuroses by ethical encouragement, but with much greater
indulgence.¹

The total disagreement evinced by this new movement with psycho-
analysis naturally also shows itself in its attitude towards repression

1I know the objections which may be advanced against the use of a patient’s state-
ments and I will therefore expressly state that my informant is as trustworthy as he
is capable of expressing judgment. He gave me this information without any solicita-
tion on my part and I use this communication without asking his consent because I
cannot admit that any psychoanalytical technique should claim the protection of
discretion.

976

which Jung hardly mentions any more in his writings, in the miscon-
struction of the dream, which, like Adler who ignores the psychology of
the dream, Jung confuses with the latent dream-thoughts, and also in the
lack of understanding of the unconscious. In brief, this disagreement is
seen in all the essential points of psychoanalysis. When Jung tells us that
the incest-complex is only “symbolic,” that it has “no real existence,”
that the savage cannot possibly feel any desire towards the old hag, but
prefers a young and pretty woman, one is tempted to assume that “sym-
bolic” and “no real existence” simply mean to him that which is desig-
nated in psychoanalysis—with regard to its expression and pathogenic
effects—as “existing unconsciously,” expressions which thus remove the
apparent contradiction.

If one bears in mind that the dream is something different from the
latent dream-thoughts which it elaborates, one will not wonder that the
patients dream of those things with which their minds have been filled
during the treatment, be it the “life-task” or being “above” or “below.”
To be sure, the dreams of those analyzed can be directed in the same
manner as dreams can be influenced by stimuli applied experimentally.
One may determine a part of the material that occurs in the dream, but
this changes nothing in the nature and mechanism of the dream. Nor do
I believe that the so-called “biographical” dream occurs outside of analy-
sis. On the other hand, if we analyze dreams which appeared before treat-
ment, or if one considers what the dreamer adds to the stimuli suggested
to him during the treatment, or if one avoids putting to him such tasks,
then one may convince himself how far removed it is from the dream to
offer tentative solutions of the life-task. For the dream is nothing but an
other form of thinking; the understanding of this form can never be
gained from the content of its thoughts, only the appreciation of the
dream-work will lead to it.

An effective refutation of Jung’s misconceptions of psychoanalysis and
his deviations from it is not difficult. Any analysis carried out in accord-
ance with the rules, especially any analysis of a child, strengthens the con-
victions on which the theory of psychoanalysis rests and repudiates the
new interpretations of Adler’s and Jung’s systems. Jung, himself, before
he became enlightened, carried out such an analysis of a child and pub-
lished it.¹⁾ It remains to be seen if he will undertake a new interpretation
of this case with the help of another “uniform trend of the facts,” to use
an expression which Adler used in this connection.

The view that the sexual representation of “higher” ideas in the dream
and in the neurosis is nothing but an archaic mode of expression, is natu-
rally irreconcilable with the fact that in the neuroses these sexual com-

1 Experiences Concerning the Psychic Life of the Child, translated by A. A. Brill,
American Journal of Psychology, April, 1910.

977

plexes prove to be the carriers of those quantities of libido which have
been withdrawn from real life. If it were only a question of sexual jargon,
nothing could thereby be altered in the economy of the libido itself. Jung
admits this himself in his Darstellung der psychoanalytischen Theorie,
and formulates, as a therapeutic task, that the libido cathexis should be
withdrawn from these complexes. But this can never be accomplished by
turning away from them and urging that they be sublimated, but only by
the most exhaustive occupation with them, and by making them fully
conscious. The first bit of reality with which the patient must deal is his
illness. Any effort to spare him this task points to the physician’s incapac-
ity to help him to overcome his resistances, or to the physician’s fear of
the results of his work.

I should like to say in conclusion that Jung, by his “modifications” of
psychoanalysis has furnished us a counterpart of Lichtenberg’s famous
knife. He has changed the hilt and has inserted a new blade into it, and
because the same trademark is engraved on it, we are required to regard
the instrument as the former one.

On the contrary, I believe that I have shown that the new theory which
desires to replace psychoanalysis, signifies an abandonment of analysis
and a secession from it. Some may perhaps be inclined to fear that this
defection perforce signifies a greater misfortune for the fate of psycho-
analysis than any other, because it had emanated from persons who once
played so great a part in the psychoanalytic movement, and did so much
to advance it. I do not share this apprehension.

Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea. They become
powerless when they oppose it. Psychoanalysis will be able to bear this
loss and will gain new adherents for those lost. I can only conclude with
the wish that fate may grant an easy ascension to those whose sojourn in
the underworld of psychoanalysis has become uncomfortable. May it be
vouchsafed to the others to bring to a happy conclusion their works in
the depth.