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THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

The beginnings of psycho-analysis may be marked by two dates: 1895, which saw the publication of Breuer and Freud’s Studies on Hysteria, and 1900, which saw that of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. At first the new discoveries aroused no interest either in the medical profession or among the general public. In 1907 the Swiss psychiatrists, under the leadership of E. Bleuler and C. G. Jung, began to concern themselves in the subject; and in 1908 there took place at Salzburg a first meeting of adherents from a number of different countries. In 1909 Freud and Jung were invited to America by G. Stanley Hall to deliver a series of lectures on psycho-analysis at Clark University, Worcester, Mass. From that time forward interest grew rapidly in Europe; it expressed itself, however, in a very forcible rejection of the new teachings - a rejection which often showed an unscientific colouring.

The reasons for this hostility were to be found, from the medical point of view, in the fact that psycho-analysis lays stress upon psychical factors, and from the philosophical point of view, in its assuming as an underlying postulate the concept of unconscious mental activity; but the strongest reason was undoubtedly the general disinclination of mankind to concede to the factor of sexuality the importance that is assigned to it by psycho-analysis. In spite of this widespread opposition, however, the movement in favour of psycho-analysis was not to be checked. Its adherents formed themselves into an International Association, which passed successfully through the ordeal of the World War, and at the present time (1925) comprises local groups in Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, London, Switzerland, Holland, Moscow and Calcutta, as well as two in the United States. There are three periodicals representing the views of these societies: the Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Imago (which is concerned with the application of psycho-analysis to non-medical fields of knowledge), and the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis.

During the years 1911-13 two former adherents, Alfred Adler, of Vienna, and C. G. Jung, of Zurich, seceded from the psycho-analytic movement and founded schools of thought of their own, which, in view of the general hostility to psycho-analysis, could be certain of a favourable reception, but which remained scientifically sterile. In 1921 Dr. M. Eitingon founded in Berlin the first public psycho-analytic clinic and training-school, and this was soon followed by a second in Vienna.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria (1895d); Freud, Traumdeutung (1900); Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens (1904); Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905); Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (1916). Freud’s complete works have been published in German (Gesammelte Schriften) (1925), and in Spanish (Obras completas) (1923); the greater part of them has been translated into English and other languages. Short accounts of the subject-matter and history of psycho-analysis will be found in: Freud, Über Psychoanalyse (the lectures delivered at Worcester, U.S.A.) (1909); Zur Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Bewegung (1914); Selbstdarstellung (in Grote’s collection Die Medizin der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen) (1925). Particularly accessible to English readers are: Ernest Jones, Papers on Psycho-Analysis, and A. A. Brill, Psychoanalysis.