34

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

Goethe.

Two years after the first congress the second private congress
of psychoanalysts took place at Nuremberg, March, 1910. During
the interval, whilst I was still under the impression of the favorable
reception in America, the growing hostility in Germany and the un-
expected 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 psychoanal-
ysis, 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 recommenda-
tion, 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 psychoanalysis, 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 con-
fused by the favor or dislike from different factions. I was either
compared to Darwin and Kepler or reviled as a paralytic. I, there-
fore, desired to push into the background not only the city whence
psychoanalysis emanated, but also my own personality. Further-
more, 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

35

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 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 was his conspicuous talents, the contributions
he had already made to analysis, his independent position, 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 person who, incapable of tolerating the author-
ity 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
because I feared the abuses to which psychoanalysis would be sub-
jected, 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 de-
cided that at the meeting of the local groups which together formed
the international organization, instruction should be given how psy-
choanalysis 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 psy-
choanalysis should meet for friendly intercourse and mutual sup-
port, 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
“International Psychoanalytic Association.” Perhaps it was more
than could possibly be attained. Just as my opponents learned that
it was not possible to stem the new movement, so I had to learn, by
experience, that it would not permit itself to be led along the par-
ticular path which I had laid out for it. The motion made by

36

Ferenczi at Nuremberg was seconded. Jung was elected president,
and Riklin was chosen as secretary. It was also decided to publish
a corresponding journal through which the central association was
“to foster and further the science of psychoanalysis as founded by
Freud both as pure psychology, as well as in its application to
medicine and the mental sciences, and to promote assistance among
the members in all their efforts to acquire and to spread psychoanalytic
knowledge.” The members of the Vienna group alone firmly op-
posed the project with passionate excitement. Adler expressed his
fear that “a censorship and limitation of scientific freedom” was
intended. The Viennese finally gave in, after having gained their
point that Zürich should not be raised to the center of the associa-
tion, but that the center should be the home city of the presi-
dent, who was to be elected for two years.

At this congress three local groups were constituted: one in
Berlin under the chairmanship of Abraham, one in Zürich, whose
chairman became the president of the central association, and one in
Vienna, the chairmanship of which I relinquished to Adler. A
fourth group, in Budapest, could not be formed until later. On ac-
count of illness Bleuler had been absent from the congress. Later
he evinced considerable hesitation about entering the association and
although he let himself be persuaded to do so by my personal repre-
sentations, he resigned a short time afterwards owing to disagree-
ments 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 be-
tween Adler and Stekel. It had originally been intended as an op-
posing 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 ap-
peared in September, 1910.

37

I will not continue the history of the Psychoanalytic Congress.
The third one took place at Weimar, September, 1911, and even sur-
passed the previous ones in spirit and scientific interest. J. J. Put-
nam, 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 any one who has attended scientific congresses
must have received a lasting impression in favor of the Psycho-
analytic Association. I myself had presided over two former con-
gresses. 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, reëstablished the discussions after each lecture,
which had not, however, proved disturbing at that time.

Two years later, in September, 1913, quite another picture was
presented by the congress at Munich which is still vividly recalled
by those who were present. It was presided over by Jung in an un-
amiable and incorrect 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 resi-
dence in the same house in which the analysts 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 pro-
ceedings ended in the reëlection of Jung as president of the Inter-
national Psychoanalytic Association, which fact Jung accepted, al-
though 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 Inter-
national 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 chairman-
ship

38

ship of A. A. Brill under the name of “The New York Psycho-
analytic Society.” At the Weimar Congress, the founding of a
second American group was authorized. This came into existence
during the next year as “The American Psychoanalytic Associa-
tion.” It included members from Canada and all America; Put-
nam 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 exist-
ence could not, of course, furnish any standard 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.^15a They published writings by Freud,
Riklin, Jung, Abraham, Rank, Sadger, Pfister, M. Graf, Jones, Stor-
fer and Hug-Hellmuth. The founding of the Imago, to be mentioned
later, has somewhat lowered the value of this form of publication. Af-
ter 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 Jahr-
buch der Psychoanalyse. It no longer wishes to be as in former
years, merely an archive for collecting works of psychoanalytic
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
Adler and Stekel after the founding of the “International Associa-
tion” (Nuremberg, 1910) went through in a short time a very varied
career. Already in the tenth issue of the first volume there was an
announcement that in view of scientific difference of opinion with

^15aDreams and Myths, Wish-fulfillment and Fairy Tales, Myth of the
Birth of the Hero, in this series are translated in the Monograph Series.

39

the editors, Dr. Adler had decided voluntarily to withdraw his col-
laboration. This placed the entire editorship in the hands of Dr.
Stekel (summer of 1911). At the Weimar congress the Zentral-
blatt was raised to the official organ of the “International Associa-
tion” and by raising 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 contents 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
psychoanalysis in all haste a new organ, the International Journal
for Medical Psychoanalysis (Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärzt-
liche Psychoanalyse). With the help of almost all my collaborators
and the new publisher, H. Heller, the first number of this new jour-
nal was able to appear in January, 1913, to take the place of the
Zentralblatt as the official organ of the “International Psychoana-
lytic 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 psycho-
analysis.

Apart from these four periodical publications (Schriften z. An-
gew. 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 REVIEW, which takes into account the fact
that most physicians in America interested in psychoanalysis do 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

40

in 1910 and the congress at Weimar, 1911, the second took place
after this, and came to light in Munich in 1913. The disappoint-
ment which they caused me might have been avoided if more atten-
tion had been paid to the mechanisms of those who undergo analyt-
ical treatment. I was well aware that any one might take flight on
first approach to the unlovely truths of analysis; I myself had always
asserted that any one’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 any one who had mastered anal-
ysis 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 knowledge 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 revenge-
ful–and partly because I know that I hereby lay myself open to the
invectives of opponents 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 fight-
ing with the opponents of psychoanalysis, 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 un-
covering of the existing evils. Any one who has followed the
growth of scientific movements will know that quite similar dis-

41

turbances and dissensions took place in all of them. It may be that
elsewhere they are more carefully concealed. However, psycho-
analysis, which denies many conventional ideals, is also more honest
in these things.

Another very palpable inconvenience lies in the fact that I can-
not altogether avoid going into an analytic elucidation. Analysis
is not, however, suitable for polemical 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 aggres-
sion against my opponents, and I will also add that I base no scien-
tific 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 refute 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 deviations 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
neuroses; it has taken the two facts of resistance and transference
as starting 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. Psycho-
analysis 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 character

42

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 its origin. I had the opportunity of
studying Dr. Adler many years and have never denied him the testi-
monial of having a superior mind, especially endowed speculatively.
As proof of the “persecution” which he claims to have suffered at
my hands, I can only say that after the formation of the Associa-
tion I handed over to him the leadership of the Vienna group. It
was only after urgent requests from all the members of the society
that I could be prevailed upon to resume the presidency at the scien-
tific 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 discov-
ery to which he was entitled, in a certain sense, through his valu-
able studies about the inferiority of organs. He really did bring
out some thing, but his work makes the impression 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 im-
pelling 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 objection-
able in the fact that a younger man should frankly admit an ambi-
tion 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 num-
ber of mean outbursts of anger which distort his writings, and by
the feeling of an ungovernable mania for priority which pervades

¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿

44

acquired from the viewpoint of the ego and brought under the
familiar categories of the same. It is then translated, changed, and
as thoroughly misunderstood as happens in the case of dream-for-
mation. 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, transla-
tions of analytical facts into the new jargon, and, thirdly, distor-
tions and perversions of these facts when they do not fit into the ego
presuppositions. The elements of the first kind have never been
ignored by psychoanalysis, although it owed no special attention to
them. Psychoanalysis had a greater interest in showing that all
ego strivings are mixed with libidinous components. Adler’s theory
emphasizes the counterpart to it; namely, that all libidinous feeling
contains an admixture of egotism. This would have been a palpable
gain if Adler had not made use of this assertion to deny, every time,
the libidinous 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 consistent
in this, that he considers the object of evincing domination over 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 the possibility of its existence to some compromise. It must,
therefore, also put to some good account the demands of the ego
which manages the repression, it must offer it some advantages by
finding for it some useful employment, otherwise it would suffer the
same fate as the originally defended impulses. The term “morbid
gain” expresses this state of affairs. One might even have been
justified in differentiating the primary gain for the ego which must
have been active at the origin, from a “secondary” gain which ap-
pears in connection with other intentions of the ego, when the symp-
tom is about to assert itself. It has also long been known to analysis
that the withdrawal of this morbid gain, or the cessation of the same

45

in consequence of some real change, is one of the mechanisms in the
cure of the symptom. On these relationships which can be verified
and understood without difficulty, Adler’s theory puts the greatest
emphasis. It entirely overlooks the fact that innumerable times the
ego makes a virtue out of necessity in submitting to the most unde-
sired symptom forced upon it, because of the use it can make of it,
e. g., when the ego accepts anxiety as a means of security. Here the
ego plays the absurd part of the Pierot in the circus, who, through
his gestures, wishes to convey to the spectators the impression that
all changes in the menage 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
security as for its own possessions. For it is nothing but psycho-
analytic knowledge which the author had from all the sources opened
to him during ten years of our joint work, but 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 used; but cannot find in it any new meaning.
Similarly one will find in Adler’s statements a great many long-
known features if one will replace the expressions “feigned”
(fingiert) fictive and fiction, by the original words “to fancy” and
“phantasy.” This identity would be emphasized by psychoanalysis,
even if the author had not for many years participated in our
common work.

The third part of Adler’s theory, which consists in giving new
interpretations to, and in distorting the disagreeable facts of psycho-
analysis, contains that which definitely severs the actual “Individual
Psychology” from psychoanalysis. As is known 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 “masculine pro-
test,” to manifest itself domineeringly in the conduct of life, in char-
acter formation and in the neurosis. This “masculine protest,” the
Adlerism motor, is nothing else, however, than the repression set free
from its psychological mechanism, and what is more, it is sexualized
and thus hardly in keeping with the vaunted expulsion of sexuality

46

from its place in the psychic life. The “masculine protest” certainly
exists, but in constituting it as the motor of the psychic life, observa-
tion has only played the part of the springboard which one leaves in
order to uplift one’s self. Let us consider one of the most funda-
mental situations of the infantile desire; namely, the observation of
the sexual act between adults by the child. When the life-
history of such persons is later subjected to analysis by a physician, it is found
that at this moment the minor spectator was seized 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 significance in the later neurosis. Adler has placed himself
so entirely into the jealous confinement of the ego, that he only
accounts for such emotional feelings as 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 meaning of “masculine”
and “feminine” have here become mixed into a hopeless composi-
tion. It is quite impossible, and it can easily be disproved by ob-
servation, that the masculine or feminine child builds its plan of life
on any original undervaluation of the feminine sex; nor is it con-
ceivable that a child can take as the guiding line the wish: “I will
be a real man.” In the beginning no child has even an inkling of
the significance of the difference in sex, more likely it starts with
the assumption that both sexes possess the same (male) genital.
It does not begin its sexual investigation with the problem of sex
differentiation and is far from entertaining the social undervaluation

47

of the woman. There are women in whose neurosis the wish to be
a man never played any part. So far as the “masculine protest” is
concerned, it can easily be traced back to a disturbance of the
original narcissism caused by the threat of castration; that is, to
the first hindrance of sexual activity. All dispute as to the psycho-
genesis of the neuroses must ultimately be decided in the sphere of
the childhood neuroses. The careful analysis of a neurosis of the
early years of childhood puts an end to all mistakes in regard to the
etiology of the neuroses, and all doubts as to the part played by the
sexual impulses. That is why Adler in his criticism of Jung’s “Con-
flicts of the Child’s Mind” was obliged to resort to the imputation
that the material of the case surely must have followed a uniform
new tendency “from the father.”¹⁷

I will not linger any longer over the biological side of Adler’s
theory, and will not examine whether the palpable inferiority of
organs or the subjective feeling of the same (one often cannot tell
which) can possibly be the basis of Adler’s system. Only permit
me to remark that this would make the neurosis a by-product of the
general stunting, while observation teaches that an excessively large
number of hideous, misshapen, crippled, and wretched creatures have
failed to react to their deficiencies by developing a neurosis. Nor
will I consider the interesting information that the sense of in-
feriority goes back to infantile feelings. It shows us in what dis-
guise the doctrine of infantilism, so much emphasized in psycho-
analysis, returns in Adler’s Individual Psychology. On the other
hand, I am obliged to emphasize how all psychological acquisitions
of psychoanalysis have been disregarded by Adler. In his book
“The Nervous Character,” the unconscious still appears as a psycho-
logical 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. For the
principle of repressions, Adler never evinced any understanding.
While reviewing a lecture before the Vienna Society in 1911, he

¹⁷ Zentralbl., Vol. I, p. 122. See “Analytical Psychology,” Moffat, Yard
& Co., N. Y.

48

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.”¹⁸ 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 sagacity used by Adler to defend his
“nervous character” might have sufficed to show him the way out of
this pettifogging argument. There is nothing mysterious about it,
except that culture depends upon the acts of repression of former
generations, and that each new generation is required to retain this
culture by carrying out the same repressions. I have heard of a
child that considered itself fooled and began to cry, because to the
question: “Where do eggs come from?” it received the 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. The child had been told what
was true.

Just as deplorable and devoid of substance is all that Adler has
said about the dream–that shibboleth of psychoanalysis. At first
he considered the dream as a turning from the masculine to the
feminine line, which simply means translating the theory of wish-
fulfillment in 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 should also be credited with the priority of confounding the
dream with the latent dream-thoughts, on the cognition 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-interpreta-
tion, whose assumptions and conclusions he is disputing. Concern-
ing resistance Adler asserts that it serves to strengthen the patient
against the physician. This is certainly correct. It means as much
as

¹⁸ Korrespondenzbl., No. 5, Zurich, April, 1911.

49

as saying that it serves the resistance. But whence this resistance
originates, and how it happens that its phenomena 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 at all with Adler, since every-
thing is equally subservient to the “masculine protest,” to the self-
assertion, and to the exaltation of the personality. The system is
finished, at the expense of an extraordinary labor of new interpreta-
tion, yet it has not contributed a single new observation. I believe
that I have succeeded in showing that his system has nothing what-
ever in common with psychoanalysis.

The picture which one derives from Adler’s system is founded
entirely upon the impulse of aggression. It has no place at all for
love. One might wonder that such a cheerless aspect of life should
have received any notice whatever; but we must not forget that
humanity, oppressed by its sexual needs, is prepared to accept any-
thing, 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 began after this date. Strangely enough, the first indications
of it were found in some remarks by Riklin in popular articles
printed in Swiss literature, 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 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 resist-
ances he would encounter. This modification for the introduction
of which the Swiss are 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 adaptation to the demands of actuality.

50

These two retrogressive movements, tending away from psycho-
analysis, which I will now compare, also resemble each other in the
fact that they are seeking to obtain a favorable opinion by means
of certain lofty points of view, as sub specie æternitatis. In the case
of Adler, this rôle is played by the relativity of all knowledge, and
by the rights of the personality to construe artificially any piece of
knowledge to suit the individual; while Jung insists on the cultural
historical rights 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 besides psychoanalysis. This idea originates from well-
known reactionary streams of the present day, inimical to science,
and wishes to give the appearance of a superiority to which we are
not entitled. Not one of 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 genera-
tions was corrected by the fourth and its recognition thus brought
about. There is nothing else for the individual to do than to defend,
with all his strength, his conviction based on experience after he
has carefully listened to his own criticisms and has given some atten-
tion to the criticisms of his opponents. Let him be content to con-
duct his affair honestly and not assume the office of judge, which is
reserved for a remote future. To accentuate personal arbitrariness
in scientific matters is bad; it evidently wishes to deny to psycho-
analysis the value of a science, which, to be sure, Adler has already
depreciated by the aforemen-
tioned remark. Any one who highly
regards scientific thinking will rather seek for means and methods
by which to restrict, if possible, the factor of personal and artificial-
arbitrariness wherever it still plays too large a part. Besides one
must remember that all agitation in defending is out of place. Adler
does not take these arguments seriously. They are only for use
against his opponents, but they respect his own theories. They have
not prevented Adler’s own adherents from celebrating him as the
Messiah, for whose appearance waiting humanity had been prepared

51

by so many forerunners. The Messiah is surely no longer anything
relative.

Jung’s argument ad captandam benevolentiam rests on the all-
too-optimistic assumption that the progress of humanity, of civiliza-
tion, and of knowledge has always continued in an unbroken line,
as if there had never been any epigones, reactions, and restorations
after every revolution, as if there had never been races who, because
of a retrogression, had to renounce the gain of former generations.
The approach to the standpoint of the masses, the giving up of an
innovation that has proved unpopular, all these make it altogether
unlikely that Jung’s correction of psychoanalysis could lay claim to
being a liberating act of youth. Finally it is not the years of the
doer that decide it, but the character of the deed.

Of the two movements we have here considered, that headed by
Adler is undoubtedly the more important. Though radically false,
it is, nevertheless, characterized by consistency and coherence and it
is still founded on the theory of the impulse. On the other hand,
Jung’s modification has lessened the connection between the phe-
nomena and the impulses: besides, as its critics (Abraham, Ferenczi,
Jones) have already pointed out, it is so unintelligible, muddled, and
confused, that it is not easy to take any attitude towards it. Wher-
ever 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
deviation, not worthy of the row which has arisen about it” (Jung),
yet, at another time, it calls itself a new salvation with which a new
epoch shall begin for psychoanalysis, in fact, a new aspect of the
universe for everything else.

When one thinks of the disagreements between the individual
private and public expressions of Jung’s utterances one is obliged to
ask to what extent this is due to his own lack of clearness and lack
of sincerity. Yet, it must be admitted 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

52

is more, this dispute is not based on new observations which might
have taught them something fresh, but rather on a different interpre-
tation which causes them to see things in a different light from that
in which they saw them before. It is for this reason that they will
not give up their connection with psychoanalysis as the representa-
tives of which they first became known in the world. They prefer
to proclaim that psychoanalysis has changed. At the Congress of
Münich I was obliged to clear up this confusion and did so by
declaring that I could not recognize the innovation of the Swiss
School as a legitimate continuation and further development of the
psychoanalysis which had originated with me. Outside critics (like
Furtmüller) had already recognized this state of affairs and Abra-
ham says, quite rightly, that Jung is in full retreat away from
psychoanalysis. I am naturally entirely willing to admit that any
one has the right to think and to write what he wishes, but he has
not the right to make it out to be something different from what it
really is.

Just as Adler’s researches brought something new into psycho-
analysis, a piece of the ego-psychology, and paid only too dearly
for this gift by repudiating all the fundamental analytic principles,
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 the incestuous object selection can be used to represent the highest
ethical and religious interests of mankind, that is, they have ex-
plained a remarkable case of sublimation of the erotic impelling
forces and the transformation of the same into strivings that can no
longer be called erotic. All this harmonized very well with the as-
sumptions of psychoanalysis, and would have agreed very well with
the conception that in the dream and in the neurosis one sees the
regressive elucidations of these and all other sublimations. But
the world would have exclaimed that ethics and religion had been
sexualized. I cannot help assuming “finally” that the investigators
found themselves quite unequal to the storm they had to face.

53

Perhaps the storm began to rage in their own bosoms. The previous
theological history of so many of the Swiss workers is as important
in their attitude to psychoanalysis as is the socialistic record of
Adler for the development of his “psychology.” One is reminded
of Mark Twain’s famous story about the fate of his watch and to the
speculative remark with which he closed 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 a parvenu 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 much come down in the world, 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; namely, that these com-
plexes themselves, from the beginning, could not have the significance
which they appeared to express, but must have that higher
“anagogic” sense (to use Silberer’s nomenclature) with which they
adapt themselves for proper use in the abstract streams of thought
of ethics and religious mysticism.

I am quite prepared to be told once more that I have misunder-
stood the contents and object of the theory of the New-Zürich
School, but here wish to protest against being held responsible for
those contradictions to my theories that have arisen as a result of
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 them in their
associations. All the changes which Jung has perpetrated upon

54

psychoanalysis originated in the intention of setting aside all that is
objectionable in the family complexes, in order that these objection-
able features may not be found again in religion and ethics. The
sexual libido was replaced by an abstract idea, of which it may be
said that it remained equally mysterious and incomprehensible alike
to fools and to the 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
development. The father who is killed in the Œdipus myth repre-
sents the “inner” father from whose influence we must free our-
selves in order to become independent. No doubt other portions of
the material of sexual conceptions will, in time, receive similarly
new interpretations. In place of the conflict between erotic striv-
ings adverse to the ego and the self-assertion, we are given the
conflict between the “life-task” and the “psychic-laziness.” The
neurotic guilty conscience corresponds with the reproach of not
having put to good account one’s life-task. Thus a new religio-
ethical system was founded which, exactly like Adler’s, was obliged
to give new interpretations, to distort or set aside the actual results
of analysis. As a matter of fact they have caught a few cultural
higher notes from the symphony of the world’s by-gones, but once
again have failed to hear the powerful melody of the impulses.

In order to hold this system together it was necessary to draw
away entirely 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 main-
tains 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! Moreover, it is to be remarked that the “Œdipus com-
plex” only represents a capacity on which the psychic forces of the
individual measure themselves, and is not in itself a force, like the
“psychic 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

55

pushed back by Jung and replaced by the judgment of the essential
facts from the study of the races. As the study of the early child-
hood of every man exposed one to the danger of striking against the
original and undisguised meaning of these misinterpreted complexes,
it was, therefore, thought best to make it a rule to tarry as little as
possible at this past and to place the greatest emphasis on the return
to the conflict. Here, moreover, the essential things are not at all
the incidental and personal, but rather the general, that is to say, the
“non-fulfilment of the life-task.” Nevertheless, we know that the
actual conflict of the neurotic becomes comprehensible and solvable
only if it can be traced back into the patient’s past history, only by
following along the way that his libido took when his malady began.

How the New Zürich therapy has shaped itself under such
tendencies I can convey by means of reports of a patient who was
himself obliged to experience it.

“Not the slightest effort was made to consider the past or the
transferences. Whenever I thought that the latter were touched,
they were explained as a mere symbol of the libido. The moral
instructions were very beautiful and I followed them faithfully, but
I did not advance 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 the fulfilment of which the overcoming of the neurosis was
supposed to depend. Some of these demands were: inner concen-
tration by means of introversion, religious meditation, living together
with my wife in loving devotion, etc. It was almost beyond my
power, since it really amounted to a radical transformation of the
whole spiritual 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 pastor would have advised, but where
was I to get the strength?”

It is true that the patient had also heard that an analysis of the
past and of the transference should precede the process. He, how-
ever, was told that he had enough of it. But as it had not helped

56

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 had need to make the long detour via Vienna to
reach Bern, so close to them, where Dubois cures neuroses by ethical
encouragement in the most indulgent fashion.¹⁹

The utter disagreement of this new movement with psycho-
analysis naturally shows itself also in its attitude towards repression,
which is hardly mentioned any more in the writings of Jung; in
the utter misconstruction of the dream which Adler, ignoring the
dream-psychology, confuses with the latent dream-thoughts, and
also in the lack of understanding of the unconscious. In fact this
disagreement can be 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 feels no desire
towards the old hag but prefers a young and pretty woman, then one
is tempted to assume in order to dispose of apparent contradiction
that “symbolic” and “no real existence” only signify what is
designated as “existing unconsciously.”

If one maintains 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 mind has been
filled during the treatment, whether it be the “life-task” or being
“above” or “below.” Certainly the dreams of those analyzed are
guidable in a similar manner as dreams can be influenced by the
application of experimental stimuli. 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 the analysis. On

¹⁹I know the objections which stand in the way of using a patient’s state-
ments, and I, therefore, expressly state that my informant is as worthy of
credence as he is capable of judging this matter. He gave me this informa-
tion without my request, and I make use of his communication without ask-
ing his consent, because I cannot admit that any psychoanalytical technique
should
lay claim to the protection of discretion.

57

the other hand, if we analyze dreams that occurred before the treat-
ment began, or if attention is paid to what the dreamer adds to the
stimuli supplied to him during the treatment, or if we avoid giving
him any such task, then we can convince ourselves how far the
dream is from offering tentative solutions of the life-task. For the
dream is only another form of thinking; the understanding of this
form can never be gained from the content of its thoughts, only the
consideration of the dream-work will lead to it.

The effective refutation of Jung’s misconceptions of psycho-
analysis and his deviations from it is not difficult. Any analysis
carried out in accordance with the rules, especially any analysis of
a child, strengthens the convictions on which the theory of psycho-
analysis 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 published it.²⁰ It remains to be
seen if he will undertake a new interpretation of this case with the
help of another “uniform new tendency of the facts,” to give
Adler’s expression used in this connection.

The opinion that the sexual representation of “higher” ideas in
the dream and in the neurosis is nothing but an archaic manner of
expression, is naturally irreconcilable with the fact that these sexual
complexes prove to be in the neurosis the carriers of those quanti-
ties of libido which have been withdrawn from the real life. If
it were only a question of sexual jargon, nothing could thereby be
altered in the economy of the libido itself. Jung himself admits this
in his “Darstellung der psychoanalytischen Theorie,” and formu-
lates, as a therapeutic task, that the libido investing the complexes
should be withdrawn from them. But this can never be accom- plished by rejecting the complexes and forcing them towards sub-
limation, but only by the most exhaustive occupation with them,
and by making them fully conscious. The first bit of reality with
which the patient has to deal is his malady itself. Any effort to
spare him this task points to an incapacity of the physician to help.

²⁰ Experiences Concerning the Psychic Life of the Child, translated by
A. A. Brill, American Journal of Psychology, April, 1910.

58

HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT

him in overcoming his resistances, or to a fear on the part of the
physician as to the results of this work.
I would like to say in conclusion that Jung, by his “modifica-
tions” has furnished psychoanalysis with a counterpart to the
famous knife of Lichtenberg. He has changed the hilt, has inserted
into it a new blade, and because the same trademark is engraved on
it he requires of us that we regard the instrument as the former one.
On the contrary, I believe I have shown that the new theory
which desires to substitute psychoanalysis signifies an abandonment
of analysis and a secession from it. Some may be inclined to fear
that this defection may be more unfortunate for the fate of psycho-
analysis than any other because it emanates from persons who once
played so great a part in the psychoanalytic movement and did so
much to further 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 the fates may prepare
an easy ascension for those who found their sojourn in the under-
world of psychoanalysis uncomfortable. May it be vouchsafed to
the others to bring to a happy conclusion their works in the deep.