17

II

Beginning with the year 1902 a number of young doctors crowded
about me with the expressed intention to learn psychoanalysis, to
practice it and to spread it. The impetus for this came from a col-
league who had himself experienced the beneficial effects of the ana-
lytic therapy. We met on certain evenings at my residence, and
discussed subjects according to certain rules. The visitors endeav-
ored to orient themselves in this strange and new realm of investiga-
tion, and to interest others in the matter. One day a young graduate
of the technical school found admission to our circle by means of a
manuscript which showed extraordinary sense. We induced him to
go through college and enter the university, and then devote himself
to the non-medical application of psychoanalysis. Thus the little
society gained a zealous and reliable secretary, and I acquired in
Otto Rank a most faithful helper and collaborator.

Soon the little circle expanded, and in the course of the next few
years changed a good deal in its composition. On the whole, I could
flatter myself that in the wealth and variety of talent our circle was
hardly inferior to the staff of any clinical teacher. From the very be-
ginning it included those men who later were to play a considerable, if
not always a delectable, part in the history of the psychoanalytic
movement. But these developments could not have been guessed at
that time. I was satisfied, and I believe I did all I could, to convey to
the others what I knew and had experienced. There were only two
inauspicious circumstances which at least mentally estranged me
from this circle. I could not succeed in establishing among the mem-
bers that friendly relation which should obtain among men doing the
same difficult work, nor could I crush out the quarrels about the
priority of discoveries, for which there were ample opportunities
in those conditions of working together. The difficulties of teach-
ing the practise of psychoanalysis, which are particularly great, and
are often to blame for the present rejection of psychoanalysis,

18

already made themselves felt in this Viennese private psychoanalytic
society. I myself did not dare to present an as yet incomplete tech-
nique, and a theory still in the making, with that authority which
might have spared the others many a blind alley and many a final
tripping up. The self-dependence of mental workers, their early
independence of the teacher, is always gratifying psychologically,
but it can only result in a scientific gain when during these labors
certain, not too frequently occurring, personal relations are also ful-
filled. Psychoanalysis particularly should have required a long and
severe discipline and training of self-control. On account of the
courage displayed in devotion to so ridiculed and fruitless a subject,
I was inclined to tolerate among the members much to which
otherwise I would have objected. Besides, the circle included
not only physicians, but other cultured men who had recognized
something significant in psychoanalysis. There were authors, ar-
tists, and so forth. The “Interpretation of Dreams,” the book on
“Wit,” and other writings, had already shown that the principles of
psychoanalysis cannot remain^* limited to the medical field, but are
capable of application to various other mental sciences.

In 1907 the situation suddenly altered and quite contrary to all
expectations; it became evident that psychoanalysis had unobtru-
sively awakened some interest and gained some friends, that there
were even some scientific workers who were prepared to admit their
allegiance. A communication from Bleuler had already acquainted
me with the fact that my works were studied and applied in Burg-
hölzli.⁴ In January, 1907, the first man attached to the Zürich Clinic,
Dr. Eitingon, visited me at Vienna. Other visitors soon followed,
thus causing a lively exchange of ideas. Finally, by invitation of
C. G. Jung, then still an assistant physician at Burghölzli, the first
meeting took place at Salzburg, in the spring of 1908, where the
friends of psychoanalysis from Vienna, Zürich, and other places
met together. The result of this first psychoanalytic congress, was
the founding of a periodical, which began to appear in 1909, under
the name of “Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopatholo-
gie.”

⁴The Clinic of Psychiatry, Zürich.

19

gische Forschungen,” published by Bleuler and Freud, and edited by
Jung. An intimate comradeship in the work done at Vienna and
Zürich found its expression in this publication.

I have repeatedly and gratefully acknowledged the efforts of the
Zürich Psychiatric School in the spreading of psychoanalysis, espe-
cially those of Bleuler and Jung, and I do not hesitate to do the
same today, even under such changed circumstances. It was cer-
tainly not the partisanship of the Zürich School which at that time
first directed the attention of the scientific world to the subject of
psychoanalysis. This latency period had just come to an end, and
psychoanalysis everywhere became the object of constantly increas-
ing interest. But whilst in all the other places this manifestation of
interest resulted first in nothing but a violent and emphatic repudia-
tion of the subject, in Zürich, on the contrary, the main feeling of
the situation was that of agreement. In no other place was so com-
pact a little gathering of adherents to be found, nowhere also was
it possible to place a public clinic at the service of psychoanalytic
investigation, or to find a clinical teacher who regarded the princi-
ples of psychoanalysis as an integral part of the teaching of psychi-
atry. The Zürich doctors became, as it were, the nucleus of the
little band which was fighting for the recognition of psychoanalysis.
Only in Zürich was there a possible opportunity to learn the new art
and to apply it in practice. Most of my present-day followers and
co-workers came to me via Zürich, even those who might have found,
geographically speaking, a shorter road to Vienna than to Switzer-
land. Vienna lies in an eccentric position from western Europe,
which houses the great centers of our culture. For many years it
has been much affected by weighty prejudices. The representatives
of the most prominent nations stream into Switzerland, which is so
mentally active, and an infective lesion in this place was sure to be
come very important for the dissemination of the “psychic epi-
demic,” as Hoche of Freiburg called it.

According to the testimony of a colleague who was an eyewitness
of the developments at Burghölzli, it may be asserted that psycho-
analysis awakened an interest there very early. Already in Jung’s

20

work on occult phenomena, published in 1902, there was an allusion
to dream-interpretation. Ever since 1903 or 1904, according to my
informer, psychoanalysis came into prominence. After the estab-
ment of personal relations between Vienna and Zürich, a society was
also founded in Burghölzli in 1907 which discussed the problems of
psychoanalysis at regular meetings. In the bond that united the
Vienna and Zürich schools, the Swiss were by no means the merely
recipient part. They had themselves already performed respectable
scientific work, the results of which were of much use to psycho-
analysis. The association-experiment, started by the Wundt School,
had been interpreted by them in the psychoanalytic sense and had
proved itself of unexpected usefulness. Thus it had become pos-
sible to get rapid experimental confirmation of psychoanalytic facts,
and to demonstrate experimentally to beginners certain relationships
which the analyst could only have talked about otherwise. The first
bridge leading from experimental psychology to psychoanalysis had
thus been constructed.

In psychoanalytic treatment, however, the association-experiment
enables one to make only a preliminary, qualitative analysis of the
case, it offers no essential contribution to the technique, and is really
not indispensable in the work of analysis. Of more importance,
however, was another discovery of the Zürich School, or rather, of
its two leaders, Bleuler and Jung. The former pointed out that a
great many purely psychiatric cases can be explained by the same
psychoanalytic process as those used in dreams and in the neuroses
(Freudsche Mechanismen). Jung employed with success the ana-
lytic method of interpretation in the strangest and most obscure phe-
nomena of dementia præcox, the origin of which appeared quite
clear when correlated with the life and interests of the patient.
From that time on it became impossible for the psychiatrists to
ignore psychoanalysis. Bleuler’s great work on Schizophrenie
(1911), in which the psychoanalytic points of view are placed on an
equal footing with the clinical-systematic ones, brought this success
to completion.

I must not omit to point out a divergence which was then already

21

distinctly noticeable in the working tendencies of the two schools.
Already in 1897 I had published the analysis of a case of schizo-
phrenia, which showed, however, paranoid trends, so that its solution
could not have anticipated the impression of Jung’s analyses. But
to me the important element had not been the interpretation of the
symptoms, but rather the psychic mechanisms of the disease, and
above all, the agreement of this mechanism with the one already
known in hysteria. No light had been thrown at that time on the
difference between these two maladies. I was then already working
toward a theory of the libido in the neuroses which was to explain
all neurotic as well as psychotic appearances on the basis of abnor-
mal drifts of the libido. The Swiss investigators lacked this point
of view. So far as I know Bleuler, even today, adheres to an or-
ganic causation for the forms of Dementia Præcox, and Jung,
whose book on this malady appeared in 1907, upheld the toxic theory
of the same at the Congress at Salzburg in 1908, which though not
excluding it, goes far beyond the libido theory. On this same point
he came to grief later (1912), in that he now used too much of the
stuff which previously he refused to employ at all.

A third contribution from the Swiss School, which is to be
ascribed probably entirely to Jung, I do not value as highly as do
others who are not in as close contact with it. I speak of the theory
of the complexes, which grew out of of the “Diagnostische Assozia-
tionsstudien” (1906–1910). It itself has neither resulted in a psy-
chological theory nor has it added an unconstrained insertion to the
context of the psychoanalytic principles. On the other hand, the
word “complex” has gained for itself the right of citizenship in
psychoanalysis, as being a convenient and often an indispensable
term for descriptive summaries of psychologic facts. None other
among the names and designations, newly coined as a result of
psychoanalytic needs, has attained such widespread popularity; but
no other term has been so misapplied to the detriment of clear think-
ing. In psychoanalytic diction one often spoke of the “return of
the complex” when “the return of the repression” was intended
to be conveyed, or one became accustomed to say “I have a com-

22

plex against him,” when more correctly he should have said “a
resistance.”

In the years after 1907, which followed the union of the schools
of Vienna and Zürich, psychoanalysis received that extraordinary
impetus in which it still finds itself today. This is positively at-
tested by the spread of psychoanalytic literature and the increase
in the number of doctors who desire to practice or learn it, also by
the mass of attacks upon it by congresses and learned societies.
It has wandered into the most distant countries, it everywhere
shocked psychiatrists, and has gained the attention of the cultured
laity and workers in other scientific fields. Havelock Ellis, who has
followed its development with sympathy without ever calling him-
self its adherent, wrote, in 1911, in a paper for the Australasian
Medical Congress: “Freud’s psychoanalysis is now championed and
carried out not only in Austria and in Switzerland, but in the United
States, in England, India, Canada, and, I doubt not, in Australasia.”⁵⁾
A doctor from Chile (probably a German) appeared at the Interna-
tional Congress in Buenos Ayres, in 1910, and spoke on behalf of
the existence of infantile sexuality and praised the results of psycho-
analytic therapy in obsessions.⁶⁾ An English neurologist in Central
India informed me through a distinguished colleague who came to
Europe, that the cases of Mohammedan Indians on whom he had
practiced analysis showed no other etiology of their neuroses than
our European patients.

The introduction of psychoanalysis into North America took
place under particularly glorious auspices. In the autumn of 1909,
Jung and myself were invited by President Stanley Hall, of Clark
University, to take part in the celebration of the twentieth anniver-
sary of the opening of Clark University, by giving some lectures
in German. We found, to our great astonishment, that the unpreju-
diced men of that small but respected pedagogic-philosophical uni-
versity knew all the psychoanalytic writings and had honored them

⁵⁾Havelock Ellis, “The Doctrines of the Freudian School.”

⁶⁾G. Greve, “Sobre Psicologia y Psicoterapia de ciertos Estados angus-
tiosos.” See Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Vol. 1, p. 594.

23

in their lectures to their students. Thus even in prudish America
one could, at least in academic circles, discuss freely and treat scien-
tifically all those things that are regarded as offensive in life. The
five lectures that I improvised at Worcester then appeared in Eng-
lish in the American Journal of Psychology; later on they were
printed in German under the title, “Ueber Psychoanalyse.” Jung
lectured on diagnostic association studies and on “conflicts in the
psychic life of the child.” We were rewarded for it with the hon-
orary degree of LL.D. During this week of celebration at Worces-
ter, psychoanalysis was represented by five persons. Besides Jung
and myself there were Ferenczi, who had joined me as travelling-
companion, Ernest Jones, then of Toronto University (Canada),
now in London, and A. A. Brill, who was already practising psycho-
analysis in New York.

The most noteworthy personal relationship which resulted at Wor-
cester, was that established with James J. Putnam, teacher of neuro-
pathology at Harvard University. For years he had expressed a dis-
paraging opinion of psychoanalysis, but now he befriended it and rec-
ommended it to his countrymen and his colleagues in numerous lec-
tures, rich in content and fine of form. The respect which he enjoys in
America, owing to his character, his high moral standard and his
keen love for truth, was very helpful to the cause of psychoanalysis
and protected it against the denunciations to which it might other-
wise have early succumbed. Yielding too much to the great ethical
and philosophic bent of his nature Putnam later required of psycho-
analysis what, to me, seems an impossible demand. He wished that
it should be pressed into the service of a certain moral philosophical
conception of the universe; but Putnam has remained the chief prop
of the psychoanalytic movement in his native land.

For the diffusion of this movement Brill and Jones deserve the
greatest credit. With a self-denying industry they constantly
brought under the notice of their countrymen, through their works,
the easily observable fundamental principles of psychoanalysis of
everyday life, of the dream and of the neuroses. Brill has strength-
ened these influences by his medical activities and his translations of

24

my writings: Jones, by illuminating lectures and clever discussions
at the American Congresses.⁷ The lack of a rooted scientific tradi-
tion and the lesser rigidity of official authority have been of decided
advantage to the impetus given to psychoanalysis in America by
Stanley Hall. It was characteristic there from the beginning that
professors, heads of insane asylums, as well as independent prac-
titioners, all showed themselves equally interested in psychoanal-
ysis. But just for this very reason it is clear that the fight for
psychoanalysis must be fought to a decisive end, where the greater
resistance has been met with, namely, in the countries of the old cul-
tural centers.

Of the European countries, France has so far shown herself the
least receptive towards psychoanalysis, although creditable writings
by the Zürich physician, A. Maeder, have opened up for the French
reader an easy path to its principles. The first indications of in-
terest came from provincial France. Moricheau-Beauchant (Poi-
tiers) was the first Frenchman who openly accepted psycho-
analysis. Régis and Hesnard (Bordeaux) have lately tried (1913)
to overcome the prejudices of their countrymen by an exhaus-
tive and senseful presentation of the subject, which takes excep-
tion only to symbolism. In Paris itself there still appears to reign
the conviction (given such oratorical expression at London Congress
1913 by Janet) that every thing good in psychoanalysis only repeats,
with slight modifications, the views of Janet—everything else in
psychoanalysis being bad. Janet himself had to stand at this Con-
gress a number of corrections from Ernest Jones, who was able to
reproach him for his lack of knowledge of the subject. We cannot,
however, forget the credit due Janet for his works on the psychology
of the neuroses, although we must repudiate his claims.

Italy, after many promising starts, ceased to take further interest.
Owing to personal connections psychoanalysis gained an early hear-
ing in Holland: Van Emden, Van Ophuijsen, Van Renterghem

⁷The collected publications of these two authors have appeared in book
form: Brill, “Psychoanalysis, its Theories and Practical Applications,” 1912,
2d edition, 1914, Saunders, Philadelphia, and E. Jones’s “Papers on Psycho-
analysis,” 1913, Wood and Company, New York.

25

("Freud en zijn school") and the two doctors Stärke are busy in
Holland particularly on the theoretical side.⁸ The interest in psy-
choanalysis in scientific circles in England developed very slowly,
but the indications are that just here, favored by the English liking
for the practical and their passionate championship of justice, a
flourishing future awaits psychoanalysis.

In Sweden, P. Bjerre, successor to Wetterstand, has, at least
temporarily, given up hypnotic suggestion in favor of analytic treat-
ment. A. Vogt (Christiania) honored psychoanalysis already in
1907 in his "Psykiatriens gruntraek," so that the first text-book on
psychiatry that took any notice of psychoanalysis was written in
Norwegian. In Russia, psychoanalysis is very generally known and
widespread; almost all my writings as well as those of other advo-
cates of analysis are translated into Russian. But a deeper grasp
of the analytic teaching has not yet shown itself in Russia. The
contributions written by Russian physicians and psychiatrists are not
at present noteworthy. Only Odessa possesses a trained psycho-
analyst in the person of M. Wulff. The introduction of psycho-
analysis into the science and literature of Poland is due chiefly to
the endeavors of L. Jekels. Hungary, geographically so near to
Austria, scientifically so foreign to it, has given to psychoanalysis
only one co-
worker, S. Ferenczi, but such an one as is worth a
whole society.

The standing of psychoanalysis in Germany can be described in
no other way than to state that it is the cynosure of all scientific
discussion, and evokes from physicians as well as from the laity,
opinions of decided rejection, which, so far, have not come to an
end, but which, on the contrary, are constantly renewed and strength-
ened. No official seat of learning has, so far, admitted psychoanal-
ysis. Successful practitioners who apply it are few. Only a few
institutions, such as that of Binswanger’s in Kreuzlingen (on Swiss
soil) and Marcinowski’s in Holstein, have opened their doors to

⁸The first official recognition that psychoanalysis and dream interpreta-
tion received was extended to them by the Psychiatrist Jelgersma, rector of
the University of Leyden, in his rectorship address February 1, 1914.

26

psychoanalysis. In the critical city of Berlin, we have K. Abraham,
one of the most prominent representatives of psychoanalysis. He
was formerly an assistant of Bleuler. One might wonder that this
state of things has thus continued for a number of years without
any change, if it was not known that the above account merely de-
scribes the superficial appearances. One must not overestimate the
significance of the rejection of psychoanalysis by the official repre-
sentatives of science, the heads of institutions, as well as their young
following. It is easy to understand why the opponents loudly raise
their voices whilst the followers, being intimidated, keep silent.
Many of the latter, whose first contributions to analysis raised high
expectations, later withdrew from the movement under the pres-
sure of circumstances. But the movement itself strides ahead
quietly. It is always gaining new supporters among psychiatrists
and the laity. It constantly increases the number of readers of
psychoanalytic literature and thus forces the opponents to a more
violent attempt at defense. In the course of these years I have
read, perhaps a dozen times, in the reports of the transactions of
certain congresses and of meetings of scientific societies, or in re-
views of certain publications, that psychoanalysis was now dead,
that it was finally overcome and settled. The answer to all this
would have to read like the telegram from Mark Twain to the news-
paper that falsely announced his death: “The report of my death is
grossly exaggerated.” After each of these death-notices, psycho-
analysis has gained new followers and co-workers and has created
for itself new organs. Surely to be reported dead is an advance
over being treated with dead silence!

Hand in hand with its territorial expansion just described psycho-
analysis became enlarged with regard to its contents through its en-
croaching upon fields of knowledge outside of the study of the
neuroses and psychiatry. I will not treat in detail the development
of this part of our branch of science since this was excellently done
by Rank and Sachs (in Löwenfeld’s “Grenzfragen”)⁹ which pre-
 

⁹An English translation has just appeared in the Nervous and Mental
Disease Monograph Series, No. 23.

27

sents exhaustively just these achievements in the work of analysis.
Besides, here everything is in inchoate form, hardly worked out,
mostly only preliminary and sometimes only in the stage of an in-
tention. Every honest thinker will find herein no grounds for re-
proach. There is a tremendous amount of problems for a small
number of workers whose chief activity lies elsewhere, who are
obliged to attack the special problems of the new science with only
amateurish preparation. These workers hailing from the psycho-
analytic field make no secret of their dilettantism, they only desire
to be guides and temporary occupants of the places of those special-
ists to whom they recommend the analytic technique and principles
until the latter are ready to take up this work themselves. That the
results aimed at are, even now, not at all insignificant, is due partly
to the fruitfulness of the psychoanalytic method, and partly to the
circumstance that already there are a few investigators, who, with
out being physicians, have made the application of psychoanalysis
to the mental sciences their lifework.

Most of these psychoanalytic applications can be traced, as is
easily understood, to the impetus given by my early analytic works.
The analytic examinations of nervous patients and neurotic manifes-
tations of normal persons drove me to the assumption of psycholog-
ical relationships which, most certainly, could not be limited only to
that field. Thus analysis presented us not only with the explana-
tion of pathological occurrences, but also showed us their connection
with normal psychic life and uncovered undreamed-of relations be-
tween psychiatry and a variety of other sciences dealing with activi-
ties of mind. Thus certain typical dreams furnished the understand-
ing of many myths and fairy tales. Riklin and Abraham followed
this hint and began those investigations about myths which have
found their completion in the works of Rank on Mythology, works
which do full justice to all the requirements of the specialist. The
prosecution of dream-symbology led to the very heart of the prob-
lems of mythology, folk-lore (Jones, Storfer) and of religious ab-
straction. At one of the psychoanalytic congresses the audience was
deeply impressed when a student of Jung pointed out the similarity

28

of the phantasy-formation of schizophrenics with the cosmogonies
of primitive times and peoples. In a later elaboration, no longer
free from objection yet very interesting, Jung made use of mytho-
logical material in an attempt to harmonize the neurotic with re-
ligious and mythological phantasies.

Another path led from the investigation of dreams to the anal-
ysis of poetic creations, and finally to the analysis of authors
and artists themselves. Very soon it was discovered that the
dreams invented by writers stand in the same relation to anal-
ysis as do genuine dreams.¹⁰ The conception of the unconscious
psychic activity enabled us to get the first glimpse into the nature of
the poetic creativeness. The valuation of the emotional feelings
which we were forced to recognize while studying the neuroses en-
abled us to recognize the sources of artistic productions and brought
up the problem as to how the artist reacts to those stimuli and with
what means he disguises his reactions.¹¹ Most psychoanalysts with
wide interests have furnished contributions from their works for the
treatment of these problems, which are among the most attractive
in the application of psychoanalysis. Naturally here also opposi-
tion was not lacking from those who are not acquainted with anal-
ysis, and expressed itself with the same lack of understanding and
passionate rejection as on the native soil of psychoanalysis. For it
was to be expected as a matter of course, that everywhere psycho-
analysis penetrates, it would have to go through the same struggle
with the natives. However, these attempted invasions have not yet
stirred up interest in all fields which will, in the future, be open to
them. Among the strictly scientific applications of analysis to lit-
erature the deep work of Rank on the theme of incest easily ranks
first. Its content is certain to evoke the greatest unpopularity.
Philological and historical works on the basis of psychoanalysis are
few, at present. I myself dared to venture to make the first at-

¹⁰Cf. “Der Wahn und die Träume” in W. Jensen’s “Gradiva.”

¹¹Rank, “Der Künstler,” analyses of poets by Sadger, Reik, and others,
my little monograph on a Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci; also
Abraham’s “Analyses von Segantini.”

29

tempt into the problems of the psychology of religion in 1910, when
I compared religious ceremonials with neurotic ceremonials. In his
work on the “piety of the Count of Zinzendorf,” as well as in other
contributions, the Rev. Dr. Pfister, of Zürich, has succeeded in trac-
ing back religious zealotism to perverse eroticism. In the recent
works of the Zürich School one is more likely to find that religion
becomes injected into the analysis rather than rationally explained
by it.

In my four essays on “Totem and Taboo”¹² I made the attempt
to discuss the problems of race psychology by means of analysis.
This should lead us directly to the origins of the most important
institutions of our civilization, such as state regulations, morality,
religion, as well as to the origins of the interdiction of incest and of
conscience. To what extent the relations thus obtained will be proof
to criticism cannot be determined today.

My book on Wit¹³ furnished the first examples of the application
of analytic thinking to esthetic themes. Everything else is still
waiting for workers, who can expect a rich harvest in this very field.
We are lacking here in workers from these respective specialties
and in order to attract such, Hans Sachs founded in 1912, the jour-
nal Imago, edited by himself and Rank. Hitschmann and v. Winter-
stein made a beginning with the psychoanalytic elucidation of philo-
sophical systems and personalities. The continuation and deeper
treatment of the same is much to be desired.

The revolutionary findings of psychoanalysis concerning the
psychic life of the child, the part played therein by sexual impulses
(v. Hug-Helmuth) and the fate of such participation of sexuality
which becomes useless for the purpose of propagation, naturally
drew attention to pedagogics, and instigated the effort to push the
analytical viewpoint into the foreground of this sphere. Recogni-
tion is due to the Rev. Pfister for having begun this application of
analysis with honest enthusiasm, and for having brought it to the

¹²A translation is in preparation.

¹³Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, translated by A. A. Brill,
Moffat, Yard & Co., New York.

30

notice of ministers and educators.¹⁴ He succeeded in winning over
a number of Swiss pedagogues as sympathizers in this work. It is
said that some preferred to remain circumspectly in the background.
A portion of the Vienna analysts seem to have landed in their retreat
from psychoanalysis on a sort of medical pedagogy. (Adler and
Furtmüller, “Heilen and Bilden,” 1913.)

I have attempted in these incomplete suggestions to indicate the,
as yet, hardly visible wealth of associations which have sprung up
between medical psychoanalysis and other fields of science. There
is material for the work of a whole generation of investigators and
I doubt not that this work will be done when once the resistance to
psychoanalysis as such has been overcome.¹⁵

To write the history of the resistances, I consider, at present,
both fruitless and inopportune. It would not be very glorious for
the scientific men of our day. But I will add at once that it has
never occurred to me to rail against the opponents of psychoanalysis
merely because they were opponents, not counting a few unworthy
individuals, fortune hunters and plunderers such as in time of war
are always found on both sides. For I knew how to account for
the behavior of these opponents and had besides discovered that
psychoanalysis brings to light the worst in every man. But I decided
not to answer my opponents and, so far as I had influence, to keep
others from polemics. The value of public or literary discussions
seemed to me very doubtful under the particular conditions in which
the fight over psychoanalysis took place. The value of majorities
at congresses or society meetings was certainly doubtful, and my
confidence in the honesty and distinction of my opponents was al-
ways slight. Observation shows that only very few persons are
capable of remaining polite, not to speak of objective, in any scien-
tific dispute, and the impression gained from a scientific quarrel was
always a horror to me. Perhaps this attitude of mine has been mis-
 

¹⁴“Die Psychoanalytische Methode,” 1913, Vol. 1 of the Pedagogium,
Meumann and Messner. English Translation by Dr. C. R. Payne. Moffat,
Yard & Co., N. Y.

¹⁵Cf. my two essays in Scientia, Vol. XIV, 1913, “Das Interesse an der
Psychoanalyse.”

31

understood, perhaps I have been considered as good-natured or so in-
timidated that it was supposed no further consideration need be
shown me.

This is a mistake. I can revile and rave as well as any other,
but I am not able to render into literary form the expressions of
the underlying affects and therefore I prefer to abstain entirely.

Perhaps in many respects it might have been better had I per-
mitted free vent to my own passions and to those about me. We
have all heard the interesting attempt at an explanation of the
origin of psychoanalysis from its Viennese milieu. Janet did not
scorn to make use of it as late as 1913, although, no doubt, he is
proud of being a Parisian. This aperçu says that psychoanalysis,
especially the assertion that the neuroses can be traced back to dis-
turbances in the sexual life, could only have originated in a city like
Vienna, in an atmosphere of sensuality and immorality not to be
found in other cities, and that it thus represents only a reflection, the
theoretical projection as it were, of these particular Viennese con-
ditions. Well, I certainly am no local patriot, but this theory has
always seemed to be especially nonsensical, so nonsensical that some-
times I was inclined to assume that the reproaching of the Vienna
spirit was only a euphemistic substitution for another one which
one did not care to bring up publicly. If the assumptions had been
of the opposite kind, we might be inclined to listen. But even if
we assume that there might be a city whose inhabitants have im-
posed upon themselves special sexual restrictions and at the same
time show a peculiar tendency to severe neurotic maladies, then such
a town might well furnish the soil on which some observer might
get the idea of connecting these two facts and of deducting the one
from the other. But neither assumption fits Vienna. The Vien-
nese are neither more abstemious nor yet more nervous than dwellers
in any other metropolis. Sex matters are a little freer, prudishness
is less than in the cities of western and northern Europe that are so
proud of their chastity. Our supposed observer would, more likely,
be led astray by the particular conditions prevailing in Vienna than
be enlightened as to the cause of the neuroses.

32

But Vienna has done everything possible to deny her share in
the origin of psychoanalysis. Nowhere else is the inimical indif-
ference of the learned and cultured circles so clearly evident to the
psychoanalyst.

Perhaps I am somewhat to blame for this by my policy of avoid-
ing widespread publicity. If I had caused psychoanalysis to occupy
the medical societies of Vienna with noisy sessions, with an unload-
ing of all passions, wherein all reproaches and invectives carried on
the tongue or in the mind would have been expressed, then perhaps
the ban against psychoanalysis might, by now, have been removed
and its standing no longer might have been that of a stranger in its
native city. As it is, the poet may be right when he makes Wallen-
stein say:

“Yet this the Viennese will not forgive me,
That I did them out of a spectacle.”

The task to which I am unequal, namely, that of reproaching the
opponents “suaviter in modo” for their injustice and arbitrariness,
was taken up by Bleuler in 1911 and carried out in most honorable
fashion in his work, “Freud’s Psychoanalysis: a Defense and a
Criticism.” It would be so entirely natural for me to praise this
work, critical in two directions, that I hasten to tell what there is in
it I object to. This work appears to me to be still very partisan,
too lenient to the mistakes of our opponents, and altogether too
severe to the shortcomings of our followers. This characterization
of it may explain why the opinion of a psychiatrist of such high
standing, of such indubitable ability and independence, has not had
greater influence on his colleagues. The author of “Affectivity”
(1906) must not be surprised if the influence of a work is not de-
termined by the value of its argument but by the tone of its affect.
Another part of this influence—the one on the followers of psycho-
analysis—Bleuler himself destroyed later on by bringing into prom-
inence in 1913, in his “Criticism of the Freudian School,” the ob-
verse side of his attitude to psychoanalysis. Therein he takes away
so much from the structure of the psychoanalytic principles that
our opponents may well be satisfied with the assistance of this de-

33

fender. It was not new arguments or better observations that served
Bleuler as a guidance for these verdicts, but only the reference to
his own knowledge, the inadequacy of which the author no longer
admits as in his earlier writings. Here an almost irreparable loss
seemed to threaten psychoanalysis. However, in his last utterance
(“Die Kritiken der Schizophrenie,” 1914) on the occasion of the
attacks made upon him owing to his introduction of psychoanalysis
into his book on “Schizophrenie,” Bleuler rises to what he himself
terms a “haughty presumption:” “But now I will assume a haughty
presumption, I consider that the many psychologies to date have
contributed mighty little to the explanation of the connec-
tion between psychogenetic symptoms and diseases, but that the deeper
psychology (tiefen psychologie) furnishes us a part of the psychol-
ogy still to be created, which the physician needs in order to under-
stand his patients and to heal them rationally; and I even believe
that in my ‘Schizophrenie’ I have taken a very small step towards
this.” The first two assertions are surely correct, the latter may be
an error.

Since by the “deeper psychology” psychoanalysis alone is to be
understood, we may, for the present, remain satisfied with this ad-
mission.