Recollecting Freud

Isidor Sadger as he appeared at the 1911 Weimar Congress

Recollecting
Freud
Isidor Sadger
Edited by

Alan Dundes
Translated by

Johanna Micaela Jacobsen

and

Alan Dundes

The Univer sity of W isconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press

1930 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53711
www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright 2005
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved
1

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sadger, J.
[Sigmund Freud. English]
Recollecting Freud / Isidor Sadger; edited by Alan Dundes;
translated by Johanna Micaela Jacobsen and Alan Dundes.
p.
cm.
ISBN 0-299-21100-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Freud, Sigmund, 18561939.
2. PsychoanalystsAustriaBiography.
I. Dundes, Alan. II. Title.
BF109.F74S2413
2005
150.1952092dc22
2004025672

Contents

Introduction by Alan Dundes

vii

Preface

My First Encounter with Freud

Freud as Speaker and Writer, Stylist and Critic

14

Contributions to the Study of Freuds Character

32

Freud as Leader and Organizer

45

Freud and the Clinic

59

Freud at the Psychoanalytic Congresses

73

Freuds Wit

82

Freud and Judaism

90

Freud and Lay Analysis

101

From the Last Years of Freuds Life

124

Introduction

Sigmund Freud, who was born on May 6, 1856, in the

small town of Freiberg in what was then Moravia and
who died in London on September 23, 1939, shortly
after having been forced to flee from the Nazi occupation of his beloved Vienna, was without doubt one of
the major figures of the twentieth century. As anyone
with the slightest interest in Freud or the branch of
psychiatry known as psychoanalysis can attest, there is
a veritable Freud industry consisting of countless dozens of books and articles devoted to his life and work.
Almost every conceivable aspect of his biography and
his writings has been subjected to the most intense
scrutiny and analysis, even psychoanalysis. The range
of writing runs the gamut from hagiographic glorification to the most extreme Freud-bashing.
The avalanche of the Freudian literature is so great
that it is doubtful whether any one individual has read
every single word on the subject. The initial biographies and reminiscences were often written by those
vii

who knew him personally. Some were colleagues; others were former patients. Among the most respected
sources is that written by Ernest Jones (18791958), one
of Freuds most loyal disciples. Jones wrote a threevolume opus, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud
(1953, 1955, 1957). Although somewhat partisan, bordering on hagiography, Joness admirable fifteen hundred pages of detail is probably unmatched at least in
terms of overall coverage of Freuds life. Freud himself
wrote a short essay entitled An Autobiographical
Study, first published in 1925, and supplemented by a
Postscript in 1935. Among the myriad contemporary
biographies of Freud, historian Peter Gays 810-page
Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988) is perhaps the most
comprehensive, although there are many, many others,
such as Ronald W. Clarks Freud, the Man and the
Cause: A Biography (1980).
There are at least as many, if not more, books criticizing Freud as there are admiring or objective biographies. Representative (and rather telling) titles include:
Marie Balmary, Psychoanalyzing Psychoanalysis (1982);
E. M. Thornton, The Freudian Fallacy (1984); E. Fuller
Torrey, Freudian Fraud (1992); Richard Webster, Why
Freud Was Wrong (1995); and Edward Dolnick, Madness
on the Couch (1998). For a sampling of such critics, one
has only to consult such books as Paul Robinson, Freud
and His Critics (1993), and Frederick C. Crews, Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend (1998).
viii

There are also numerous histories of psychoanalysis, starting with Freuds own essay plus such later surveys as Reuben Fine, A History of Psychoanalysis (1979);
Stephen A. Mitchell and Margaret J. Black, Freud and
Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought
(1995); and Joseph Schwartz, Cassandras Daughter: A
History of Psychoanalysis (1999).
In addition, anyone concerned with Freud or the
origins of psychoanalysis has available to them a wealth
of reminiscences written by former patients or analysts
treated by Freud or colleagues. These include: Adolph
Stern, Some Personal Psychoanalytical Experiences
with Prof. Freud (1922); A. A. Brill, Reflections, Reminiscences of Sigmund Freud (1940); Roy Grinker,
Reminiscences of a Personal Contact with Freud
(1940); Theodor Reik, From Thirty Years with Freud
(1940); Max Graf, Reminiscences of Professor Sigmund Freud (1942); Hanns Sachs, Freud: Master and
Friend (1944); Joseph Wortis, Fragments of an Analysis
with Freud (1954); H[ilda] D[oolittle]s Tribute to
Freud, by H.D. (1956); Ludwig Binswanger, Sigmund
Freud: Reminiscences of a Friendship (1957); Ernest
Jones, Free Associations: Memoirs of a Psychoanalyst
(1959); Bruno Goetz, Erinnerungen an Sigmund Freud
(1969); Edoardo Weiss, Sigmund Freud as a Consultant:
Recollections of a Pioneer in Psychoanalysis (1970); Max
Schur, Freud: Living and Dying (1972); John M. Dorsey, An American Psychiatrist in Vienna, 19351937, and
ix

His Sigmund Freud (1976); Abram Kardiner, My Analysis with Freud: Reminiscences (1977); and Richard F.
Sterba, Reminiscences of a Viennese Psychoanalyst (1982).
There is even a memoir of remembrance by Freuds
maid, Paula Fichtl (Berthelsen 1987), not to mention
one written by one of his sons, Martin: Glory Reflected:
Sigmund FreudMan and Father (1957). A number of
these glimpses of contact with Freud, or excerpts
thereof, are contained in Ruitenbeeks excellent anthology, Freud as We Knew Him (1973). Generally speaking,
many of these reminiscences tend to be as much if not
more about their authors lives as about Freud.
What is curious is that not a single one of the innumerable books and articles devoted to Freud, whether
pro or con, has consulted one of the earliest considerations of Freud and his achievements, written by a
definite insider, one of Freuds first students, and a
longtime member of Freuds Wednesday Psychological
Society, which eventually morphed into the Viennese
Psychoanalytic Society. The book in question is Sigmund Freud: Persnliche Erinnerungen, by Dr. Isidor
Sadger, and it was published by the Ernst Wengraf Verlag in Vienna in 1930. The ten short chapters of the
book treat Freud as a teacher, therapist, and clinician,
as well as his involvement in the various psychoanalytic
congresses, his delight in wit, his attitudes towards
Judaism, and his strong opinion concerning lay (nonmedical) analysts, all topics treated endlessly by the
hordes of Freudian critics that surfaced after 1930.
x

Questions that come to mind are: Who was Isidor

Sadger? And why was his book, very likely one of the
first full-fledged major considerations of Freud and his
influence, totally ignored by every single scholar to
date who has written about Freud?
According to Elke Mhlleitners authoritative Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse (1992), which includes some one hundred fifty brief capsule biographies of the members of the Wednesday Psychological
Society and the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society from
1902 to 1938, Isidor Isaak Sadger was born on October
29, 1867, in Neusandec in Galicia of Jewish parents
Miriam and Hersch Sadger. He completed his medical
training at the University of Vienna in 1891 and began
his practice in 1893, eventually specializing in neurology. Sadger was an advocate of a treatment known as
hydrotherapy, a popular procedure involving immersion in water developed in the nineteenth century by
a Silesian farmer, Vincent Priessnitz (18011851), who
had popularized the medicinal value of the external application of water as a curative technique. This water
cure practice survives in modern times in the form of
whirlpool paths and hot-tubs as well as at spas. (Consider all the German place names ending with baden,
as in Baden-Baden or Wiesbaden.) Sadger wrote several
papers on hydropathy in 1896 (1896a, 1896b; May 1999:
28), and in an 1897 article Sadger proclaimed hydrotherapy as the cure of the future for nervous diseases
(Rose 1998:70).
xi

It was in the winter semester of 189596 that Sadger began to audit Freuds lectures at the University
of Vienna. He continued to do so in 1896, 1898, and
19034. But it was his eventual participation in the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society that was the critical
turning point in his involvement with Freud.
Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth century was one of the most
exciting intellectual centers in the world. It was not just
a question of art, literature, and politics, but it was also
the newly emerging branch of psychiatry known as
psychoanalysis (Schorske 1980; Rose 1998; Pouh 2000).
According to Wilhelm Stekel (18681940) in his Autobiography, it was he who first proposed to Freud in 1902
the idea of getting together informally. Freud liked the
idea and sent postcard invitations to four individuals:
Stekel, Max Kahane (18661928), who left the group in
1907, Rudolf Reitler (18651917), supposedly the first
to practice psychoanalysis after Freud, and Alfred Adler
(18701937). I gave him the suggestion of founding a
little discussion group; he accepted the idea, and every
Wednesday evening after supper we met in Freuds
home. . . . These first evenings were inspiring. We
found some random themes to talk about and everybody participated in a real discussion. On the first
night we spoke about the psychological implications of
smoking. There was complete harmony among the
five, no dissonances; we were like pioneers in a newly
xii

discovered land, and Freud was the leader. A spark

seemed to jump from one mind to the other, and every
evening was like a revelation. We were so enthralled by
these meetings that we decided new members could be
added to our circle only by unanimous consent. The
new ones came: Paul Federn [18711950] and Edward
Hitschmann [18711957], later Isidor Sadger who introduced Fritz Wittels [18801950] (Stekel 1950:115116).
Apparently, the order of discussants was determined by
drawing from a Greek urn slips of paper upon which
those in attendance had written their names. After the
drawing, members were expected to remain until the
end of the meeting (Rose 1998:5657).
Others have described the stimulating atmosphere
that permeated the initial meetings of the group called
the Wednesday Psychological Society. Here is the description of the remarkable ambience of the gatherings
written by Max Graf (18731958): We would gather in
Freuds office every Wednesday evening. Freud sat at the
head of a long table, listening, taking part in the discussion, smoking his cigar, and weighing every word with a
serious, probing look. . . . The gatherings followed a
definite ritual. First, one of the members would present
a paper. Then, black coffee and cakes were served; cigars
and cigarettes were on the table and were consumed in
great quantities. After a social quarter of an hour, the
discussion would begin. The last and the decisive word
was always spoken by Freud himself. There was an
xiii

atmosphere of the foundation of a religion in that

room. Freud himself was its new prophet who made the
theretofore prevailing methods of psychological investigation appear superficial. Freuds pupilsall inspired
and convinced were his apostles. Despite the fact that
the contrast among the personalities of this circle of
pupils was great, at that early period of Freudian investigation all of them were united in their respect for and
inspiration with Freud (1942:470471; for another account see Wittels 1924:133134). There is little question
that this lively group sparked an important intellectual
paradigm shift in psychiatry (Gross 1979).
On April 15, 1908, the group decided to become
more formalized and on October 12, 1910, finally
changed its name to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society
(Jones 1955:9). It continued to exist until 1938 when the
incursion of the Nazis forced its dissolution (Reichmayr 1995:179).
It was at the meeting of November 14, 1906, that
Freud proposed Sadger for membership and it is noteworthy that it was Freud himself who nominated Sadger. One week later the minutes for the meeting of
November 21 indicate that he was duly admitted by
unanimous vote (Nunberg and Federn 1962:52). Sadger was notified of his acceptance the following day,
Thursday, November 22.
Freuds first contact with Sadger occurred much
earlier. In 1894 and 1895 Sadger wrote a series of articles
xiv

on Ibsen for Allgemeine Zeitung, a local newspaper

(May 1999:47), and in 1897 Sadger published an essay
praising the writings of the well-known neurologist
and psychiatrist Paul Flechsig (18471929), which he
sent to Freud. Flechsig had treated Daniel Paul Screber (18421911), a famous patient whose 1903 autobiographical description of his mental state provided
the data base for Freuds classic 1911 paper PsychoAnalytic Notes upon an Autobiographical Account of a
Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides) (Niederland
1974). Sadger praised Flechsig to the skies, which annoyed Freud to the point that he had a dream about it.
How do we know this? We know this because Freud, as
part of his remarkable self-analysis, included the dream
in his ground-breaking The Interpretation of Dreams,
first published in 1900.
Here is the dream as reported by Freud: A colleague sent an essay of his, in which he had, in my
opinion, overestimated the value of a recent physiological discovery, and had expressed himself, moreover, in
extravagant terms. On the following night I dreamed a
sentence which obviously referred to this essay: That is
a truly norekdal style. The solution of this wordformation at first gave me some difficulty; it was unquestionably formed as a parody of the superlatives
colossal pyramidal; but it was not easy to say where it
came from. At last the monster fell apart into the two
names Nora and Ekdal, from two well-known plays by
xv

Ibsen [A Dolls House and The Wild Duck]. I had previously read a newspaper article on Ibsen by the writer
whose latest work I was now criticizing in my dream
(1938:331). Sadger is not named, and this has unfortunately led to the colleague being mistakenly identified as Wilhelm Fliess (18581928) (Anthi 1990), with
whom Freud had an important intense friendship that
resulted in a historically significant correspondence
(Masson 1985). However, several writers have correctly
identified Sadger as the colleague in question (Wittels
1924:76; May 1999, 2003). The point in the present
context is that by 1900 Freud already considered Sadger
a colleague, and that he had already been put off by
Sadgers style of presentation.
On November 28, 1906, just one week after having
been accepted into the Society, Sadger presented the
first of what would prove to be his many communications to the group. In fact, with the possible exception
of Freud himself, it seems that no member of the Society made more presentations than did Sadger. Entitled
Lenau and Sophie Lwenthal, the debut paper (Sadger 1909a) concerned Austrian writer Nikolaus Lenau
(18021850), who eventually died in a mental institution. The paper reflected two of Sadgers principal research interests. Sadger was inclined to present psychological (or psychoanalytic) profiles of authors in what he
termed pathographieshe wrote an essay about this
type of analysis in Imago in 1912. Sadger did not invent
xvi

the term pathography. In the mid-nineteenth century

the term referred simply to the history or description
of a disease. But as employed by Sadger (and also by
Freud in his study of Da Vinci), it referred to a psychiatric study of an author or artist based upon an analysis
of that individuals creative oeuvre. Sadger also had a
great interest in the study of homosexuality. In his initial presentation, he suggested that Lenaus neurosis
might have had a hereditary component and he also
remarked that part of Lenaus personality profile included a homosexual tendency which he traced to an
experience he had had at age fourteen with an unmarried cleric. Sadger further noted that In the course of
Lenaus insanity, homosexual tendencies also became
manifest. He took a liking to the gardeners helper, to
stable boys, and the like (Nunberg and Federn 1962:
65). Freuds criticism on this occasion was relatively
mild. He did, however, peremptorily dismiss Sadgers
notion of a hereditary neurosis. The term hereditary neurosis which the speaker used, should preferably be avoided, since it does not convey the essential
character of any definite symptom complex (65).
Sadger proposed the term again, along with hereditary psychosis, during a discussion of Degeneration
at a meeting on May 1, 1907, eliciting the same negative
reaction from Freud. This time Freud minced no
words: The new concepts of hereditary neurosis and
hereditary psychosis should be rejected (Nunberg and
xvii

Federn 1962:185, 187). The following week, Freud reiterated his position: Among the propositions advanced
by Sadger last time . . . the diagnosis of hereditary deficiency is altogether of no value (193). Of course, if
a neurosis were truly completely hereditary, then that
would eliminate the basic thesis of Freuds concept of
the importance of infantile conditioning on adult personality. Adler, for example, also objected to Sadgers
theory of hereditary taintwhich, according to him, is
characterized by a number of qualities (stigmata) that
cannot be psychoanalytically resolved (Nunberg and
Federn 1974:76). Clearly Freud would not be at all
amenable to such a concept. Sadger persisted in his use
of the concept, but invariably other members of the
Society objected to it as overly reductionistic and simplistic (Rose 1998:71).
On March 20, 1907, less than six months after
he had been admitted to the Society, Sadger proposed
his nephew Fritz Wittels for membership. Wittels was
unanimously voted in one week later (Nunberg and
Federn 1962:153), but his participation in the Society
was intermittent, 1906 to 1910 and 1927 to 1936, compared to that of Sadger who attended meetings faithfully from 1906 to 1933 (Mhlleitner and Reichmayr
1998:1099, 1101). Interestingly enough, Wittels wrote
three books (1924, 1931, 1995) about Freud. The first
of these was published six years earlier than that of
Sadger, but unlike Sadger, Wittels did not devote his
xviii

entire book to Freud as there were individual chapters

devoted to Adler, Carl Gustav Jung (18751961), and
Stekel, a fact that surely must have displeased Freud.
In contrast, Sadgers biography concentrated on Freud
alone. On the other hand, we know that Freud did read
Wittelss 1924 book because the English translation of it
contains extracts from Freuds letter to Wittels of December 18, 1923, in which he offers comments, some
critical, of Wittelss portrayal of him. In fact, Freud
read the English translation too as his letter of August
15, 1924, attests, one line of which reads Neither
would a little more truthfulness have done your biography any harm (E. Freud 1975:352). Whereas, in
contrast, there is no evidence whatsoever that Freud
ever read Sadgers book. This seems odd inasmuch as
the book was, after all, published in 1930 in Vienna,
where Freud lived.
Although Sadger has to be considered a minor figure in the early psychoanalytic movementmost histories of psychoanalysis rarely or barely mention him,
and as one student of the subject noted Little is known
about Sadger (Rose 1998:69), a phrase that is often repeated (Nunberg and Federn 1962:xxxvi; Handlbauer
1998:38)he was certainly among the most devoted
followers of Freud. Sadgers enthusiasm for Freud is signaled by the fact that he was one of the first to write a
popular account and appreciation of psychoanalysis intended for the wider medical profession. Entitled Die
xix

Bedeutung der psychoanalytischen Methode nach

Freud, it was published in the Centralblatt fr Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie in 1907.
At the first psychoanalytic congress, held in Salzburg on April 27, 1908, there were only a limited number of principal speakers: Freud, Jones, Sadger, Morton
Prince (18541929), Franz Riklin (18781938), Karl
Abraham (18771925), Stekel, Adler, and Jung. The very
fact that Sadger was chosen, presumably by Freud, to be
one of such an illustrious group attests to his stature
at that time. According to a copy of the program reproduced in Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Sadgers communication was entitled Contribution
to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis (Nunberg
and Federn 1962:389). In Ernest Joness report of the
program, the paper title is given as The Aetiology of
Homosexuality (1955:42), and this is more or less confirmed by Wittels who claimed that at the Salzburg congress Sadger was able to report the first case in which a
homosexual had been cured by psycho-analysis (1924:
136). The presentation was published as Zur tiologie
der kontrren Sexualempfindung in 1909, but was apparently based on treatment of a patient for a period of
only thirteen days (Lewes 1988:62)! Already in 1908,
Sadger had published several papers on homosexuality,
and in one of them he asked Is homosexuality curable? His conclusion in part: Freuds psychoanalytic
method gives us for the first time a technique that
xx

provides a basis to cure homosexuality (1908b:720).

Sadger felt that homosexuality could be cured through
psychoanalysis just as sleepwalking could (1920b).
Freud, however, did not share Sadgers view that homosexuality was an illness that could be cured (Lewes
1988:2835; Robinson 2000). In another paper, published in the Archiv fr Kriminal-Anthropologie und Kriminalistik in 1913, Sadger asked, What is the value of
narratives and autobiographies of homosexuals? Freud
acknowledged in print his debt to Sadgers investigations of homosexuality, for example, in his famous
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905:135) and his
analysis of Leonardo Da Vinci (1910:99n.1). Freud also
credited Sadger with emphasizing the basic bisexuality
of human beings (1908:165; 1920:157).
Another indication of Sadgers early appreciation of
Freuds writings is his short essay Analerotik und Analcharakter, which appeared in 1910. It was probably the
first published reaction to Freuds brilliant 1908 paper
Character and Anal Erotism. Sadgers insights were
noted by both Abraham Ernest Jones in their more
extensive treatments of so-called anal erotic character.
However, in a somewhat mean-spirited statement, one
scholar has remarked that Sadger seemed to have
made a minor career at explicating the varieties of anal
erotism from buttocks erotism (Gessserotik) to urethral
erotism (Lewes 1988:58) referring to essays written in
1910 and 1913.
xxi

Sadgers admiration for Freud and his work is also

demonstrated in his review of The Interpretation of
Dreams in the folklore journal Anthropophyteia in 1911.
His last sentence: This book has become for all its students a classic (1911:490). Curiously enough, Sadgers
rave review contains an egregious Freudian slip. According to Kiell (1988:184) Sadger presumably meant to
say: However, Freuds genius produced [bringen etwas]
additional priceless fruits from his work on dreams,
but instead the preposition um was somehow inserted so that the line read However, Freuds genius
was deprived of [bringen um etwas] additional priceless
fruits from his work on dreams. What this suggests is
that by 1911, Sadger had developed some ambivalence,
perhaps unconscious, in his attitude towards Freud.
To be sure, Freuds attitude towards Sadger was not
altogether positive, to put it mildly. Just prior to the
Salzburg congress, which took place in April 1908,
Freud wrote a letter to Jung with whom he was still on
very good terms. In that letter of March 5, Freud had
this to say about Sadger: I hear that Sadger, that congenital fanatic of orthodoxy, who happens by mere accident to believe in psychoanalysis rather than in the
law given by God on Sinai-Horeb (McGuire 1974:130).
Freuds comment is remarkably parallel to a passage in a
letter written by Abraham to Max Eitingon (18811943)
in which Abraham tells of his experience attending a
meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. I
xxii

attended a Wednesday night meeting. He [Freud] is

too advanced in relation to the others. Sadger is like a
Talmudic student: He interprets and applies every rule
pronounced by the master with the rigor of an orthodox Jew (H. C. Abraham 1974:81).
The unbending rigidity of Sadgers thinking is
commented upon by Richard Sterba (18981989) in
his book of reminiscences. He recalled the reaction of
some of the members of the Society to the modification of Freuds initial id-ego-superego formulation that
Freud proposed in his 1923 The Ego and the Id. The
need to accept the new structural theory which to
a great extent replaced the topographical model that
until then had been the foundation of Freuds metapsychology met with great resistance. Some of the
members refused to deal with it altogether. I remember
that, in a theoretical discussion at a society meeting,
Isidor Sadger, an older member, shouted indignantly:
I dont care a hoot whether the id represses the ego or
the ego represses the id. He refused even to try to comprehend the change to new theoretical conceptions
that Freuds Ego and the Id had forced upon us (Sterba
1982:76).
Freud and other members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society had several objections to Sadgers various
research efforts. Not only did Sadger apply Freudian
theory in a rather rigid Procrustean mechanical fashion,
but he did so with a kind of overkill, often presenting
xxiii

an undigested overwhelming mass of data. He also

seemed to select relatively obscure literary figures to feature in his pathographies. In a letter to Jung dated January 2, 1910, Freud counseled him to try to rein in Sadger. I should like to incite you to stem the interminable
flow of Sadgers rubbish on the biography of unimportant men. I know the piece, like all Sadgers papers, it
must to the barbers, as Hamlet says (McGuire 1974:
283). The allusion to Hamlet (II, ii) is obviously a hint
that Sadgers paper should be cut or at least trimmed. In
another letter to Jung, dated one month later, February
2, 1910, Freud referred unhappily to the prospect of
having Sadger submit a paper for the Jahrbuch der
Psychoanalyse in no uncertain terms: Sadgers writing is
insufferable, he would only mess up our nice book
(291). On the other hand, Freud also mentioned to Jung
that compared to Adler and Federn, Sadger is the
ablest practitioner (204). Sadger may have been practicing psychoanalysis as early as 1898 (May 1999:40),
and if this is so, he was one of the very first psychoanalysts. Still, on balance, Freud was beginning to find Sadger something of a trial. In a letter to Abraham dated
January 14, 1912, speaking of Abrahams plan to consider Amenhotem IV in the light of psychoanalysis,
Freud remarked, It is surely a great step forward in our
research. Then he added jokingly, Do you know that
you are now joined with Stekel and Sadger, the Btes
noires of psychoanalysis against which I have always
been prejudiced? (H. C. Abraham 1974:106).
xxiv

Sadger was one of the few early psychoanalysts who

was not himself analyzed. This is somewhat surprising
in view of the oft-repeated Freudian dictum that The
only way to learn analysis is to be psychoanalyzed
(Stern 1922:22; Wortis 1940:843; Von Urban 1958:193;
Dufresne 1996:503). Sadger analyzed Hermine HugHelmut (18711924) and the maverick analyst Wilhelm
Reich (18971957), but he was reportedly jealous of
Reich insofar as Freud seemed to favor him over the
older Sadger (Sharaf 1983:108). Evidently Sadger had
vain hopes of being one of Freuds favorite sons, a
status he never attained. His obvious resentment of
some of those favorite sons is a recurring theme in his
book.
In another comment, this by Ludwig Jekels (1867
1954), we find a description of what happened when
the Society meetings were held at a hall at the Vienna
College of Physicians rather than in Freuds home. According to Jekels, personal conflicts arose in the larger
venue. There differences came to the fore which to my
mind had various personal motives as their basis; above
all, there was one to be the favorite son (of Freud) and
to cut out others who were in favor with him. . . . Most
often this happened between Stekel and Sadger, later
[Viktor] Tausk [18791919] also entered the lists who
loved to assail the two of them. This went so far that
Freud asked me after one of the sessions: What does
Tausk want from Sadger; he is indeed a serious
scholar! (Roazen 1985:173).
xxv

Freud did have an inner circle of trusted colleagues

and confidants: Abraham, Eitingon, Sndor Ferenczi
(18731933), Jones, Otto Rank (18841939), and Hanns
Sachs (18811947), to each of whom he gave a ring as a
sign of their special status (Sachs 1944:153; Grosskurth
1991). Sadger was not part of this inner circle.
Most of Freuds comments about Sadger were in
the form of private statements made in letters to
members of his inner circle, but there were occasions
when Freud criticized Sadger in public, usually following one of Sadgers numerous presentations to the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. For example, on December 4, 1907, Sadger presented one of his pathographies, this one devoted to the Swiss poet Konrad
Ferdinand Meyer (18251898), which would appear in
monograph form the following year. Sadger emphasized two factors: heredity and Meyers apparent unrequited love for his mother. Despite the audiences obvious sympathy for the Oedipal arguments, they found
Sadgers analysis crude and a bit simplistic. The rigidity and reductionism of Sadgers presentation greatly
irritated those assembled, who did not restrain their
severe criticism. So vitriolic were the comments that
Freud was forced to intervene to restore peace (Gay
1988:177). He urged moderation, claiming that, At
the very least, Sadgers industry is to be commended,
though it unfortunately is all too often expended on
sterile topics.
xxvi

Freud, however, had his own reservations about

Sadgers overly dogmatic presentations, which he considered unimaginative (Jones 1955:342), and he then
went on to further criticize Sadger: This is not the correct way to write pathographies. . . . Sadger has a rigidly
established way of working. That is, he uses a two-sided
scheme: hereditary tainting and modern erotic psychology. All of life is then viewed in the light of this scheme.
Sadgers investigation has not clarified anything for him
[Freud] (Nunberg and Federn 1962:257).
Freud was even forced to distance himself from
Sadgers pathography of Meyer. In a letter dated November 5, 1909, to his lifelong friend, the Swiss Protestant pastor Reverend Oskar Pfister (18761956), Freud
noted, Incidentally, K. F. Meyers mother and sister
were denounced as sexual objects not by me but by
Sadger (Meng and Freud 1963:31).
On January 17, 1912, following Sadgers presentation entitled From Hebbels Boyhood, which was
based on what would become a series of essays that
eventually culminated in a book, Friedrich Hebbel, ein
psychoanalytischer Versuch that was published later in
1920, Freud sought to explain why Sadger consistently
encounters opposition whenever he speaks to the
Society. Freud concludes: He has too harsh a way of
approaching delicate problems. Above all, however, he
invariably neglects the whole superstructure and represents things as though the psychosexual factors which
xxvii

are at the deepest roots were the solutions that offered

themselves at the start. Even when Freud praised Sadger, there was often a devastating undercutting addendum: There is no objection to Sadgers interpretation,
aside from the fact that it is incomplete (Nunberg and
Federn 1975:16, 17).
It seems that Sadger never married (Mhlleitner
1992:283). He may also have been something of a misogynist. On April 14, 1910, there was a debate among
the members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society as
to whether or not women should be admitted to the
Society. Sadger was adamantly opposed (Nunberg and
Federn 1967:477). Freud, however, despite the fact that
he would later be criticized by feminists for his male
bias and failure to understand women, argued that
women should not be excluded on principle. (Sadger
also differed with Freud on the issue of lay analysis.
Sadger felt strongly that only physicians should practice psychoanalysis [Sadger 1927] while Freud generally
favored lay analysis. This troublesome topic is treated
in a fascinating chapter-length discussion in this
book.)
Two weeks later, a vote was taken with twelve in
favor and two opposed, presumably one of the two
being Sadger (Handlbauer 1998:89). So Freud prevailed
and of the approximately one hundred fifty members
of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society over the course of
that Societys existence, there were 108 men and 43
xxviii

women (Mhlleitner and Reichmayr 1998:1055). The

percentage of women members rose from zero in the
years 1902 to 1909 to nearly 46 percent in 1937 (Mhlleitner 2000:646). There were also apparently rumors
that Sadger had misbehaved with women patients (Ferris 1997:214). Supposedly Reich criticized Sadger and
others for using the guise of a medical examination as
an excuse to touch their patients genitally (Sharaf 1983:
108), but this may be little more than idle gossip or malicious rumor.
The fact that Sadger never married, expressed misogynistic views, and seemed particularly interested in
homosexuality makes it tempting to speculate about
his own sexual inclinations. It is certainly the case that
in most of his interventions and comments offered on
presentations made by other members of the Society,
Sadger somehow always managed to mention homosexuality. In one such comment, Sadger emphasized
the significance of the homosexual tendency in neurosis which he called attention to as early as in 1897 when
he laid special stress on the bisexuality of every neurotic
symptom, at which point Freud responded To Sadger, one has to reply that it is not all true that every
symptom, in addition to its other roots, also has to have
homosexual roots (Nunberg and Federn 1975:98). But
Sadger was not the least bit discouraged or deterred by
such criticisms. He never retreated from his earlier view
stated on November 20, 1907, in which he offered the
xxix

following observation: the wish for the death of the

spouse is rooted in homosexuality. Homosexuality
altogether plays a far greater part in the causation of
neurosis than is generally believed (Nunberg and Federn 1962:243).
In his 1907 paper setting forth his exposition of the
Freudian method, he observed, Psychoanalysis can be
mastered only by one who is able to trace every symptom back to the first four years of life and often even
directly to the first year of life, and he must then further find linkages to a plethora of heterosexual as well
as homosexual wishes. And he added further, Above I
have already explained that behind every single hysterical symptom stands concealed a homosexual wish
(1907:47, 49).
In a paper published much later, in 1929, Sadger remarked, We know that at puberty nearly all human
beings pass through a homosexual period. Boys wax
enthusiastic for true friendship, school-girls for girls of
their set, and it is by no means uncommon for such
friendships with their inevitable admixture of sexuality
to last throughout life (1929:352). Sadger even goes
so far as to argue that same-sex attachments are vital
in adulthood because in such a friendship important
sexual cravings must in nature remain unsatisfied and
that in turn leads to sublimations in the form of art
and science. We see, he concludes, how necessary is
mental homosexuality (353).
xxx

In one sense, Sadgers sexual preferences are really

beside the point, but inasmuch as he himself was not
averse to drawing psychological inferences from the
biographies of the writers he treated in his various pathographies, it does not seem unfair to consider his life
from a similar perspective. Certainly a goodly number
of Sadgers publications concerned homosexuality and
to the extent that one is justified in assuming that research topic choices may have a projective aspect, it is
not unreasonable to speculate that Sadgers unmistakable longstanding professional interest in the subject
had possible personal implications. But whatever Sadgers actual or latent sexual preferences might or might
not have been, what is of interest at this point in time
is his unusual contribution to our knowledge of
Freud.
Piecing together snippets here and there from the
Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and various
memoirs written by participants of the period, one can
glean the fact that Sadger appears to have been actively
disliked by many, including Freud himself. A revealing
editorial footnote in the Minutes reads: Criticism was
frequently severe, not only of Sadger, but of everyone in
the circle. Subsequently, Sadger was subjected to even
sharper criticism. He made himself disliked although
his merits in respect to psychoanalysis are considerable
(Nunberg and Federn 1962:258n.3). Perhaps it was the
constant criticism leveled at Sadger that accounted for
xxxi

his making a formal motion that Personal invectives

and attacks should immediately be suppressed by the
Chairman [Freud] who shall be given the authority to
do so (300).
One apparent reason why Sadger was disliked had
to do with his manner. Evidently, he was sometimes
overly blunt if not coarse in his advocacy of Freud. An
early report in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology in
1911 characterizes Sadger as being doctrinaire and inflexibly authoritarian. His [Sadgers] work is not lacking in such dogmatic assertions as Every man is from
his very beginning bisexual. . . . It is orthodoxy free from
all timidity (Friedlnder 1911:299, emphasis in original). A further discussion of Sadgers works reads, The
well-known hypothesis of Freud relative to the erotic
origin of all psychopathic manifestations is presented,
together with theoretic considerations, with an aggressiveness to the point of disgust, and it cannot be too
strongly refuted (299).
Listen to what Freud said on May 5, 1909, after
Sadgers presentation (Sadger 1910b) on the writer
Heinrich von Kleist (17771811). Freuds observations
followed a comment by Stekel, who said that while the
content of Sadgers views were certainly justified, the
manner in which Sadger treats the topic makes these
things rather unattractive for the general public
(Nunberg and Federn 1967:221). Freud began his critical remarks by asking, Why is it that, even though
xxxii

Sadger makes assertions that must be accepted as correct, his communications feel strange to us, sometimes
even offensive? Freud tried to answer his own question. Sadger must also be reproached for having a special predilection for the brutal. However, our task is not
arbitrarily to speak new truths, but rather to show in
what way they can be arrived at. A certain degree of tolerance must go hand in hand with a deeper understanding, especially of unconscious phenomena, if life is to
remain at all bearable. Sadger apparently has not acquired this tolerance, or at least he is not capable of expressing it. And this lack of tolerance, which manifests
itself in a moralistic pathos, is the second repellent aspect of his paper. Quite apart from these general weaknesses, this work seems to be wholly unreliable. Factual
material is totally lacking, and with it evidence for a
number of things. . . . Sadgers attempts at analyzing
Kleists works are also very weak (224225). Keep in
mind that this criticism was made in Sadgers presence.
This was by no means the only occasion when Freud
spoke his mind in public about Sadgers style of presentation. On January 5, 1910, following the third portion
of Sadgers three-part case history, Freud confessed (in
front of Sadger) that the first presentations of Sadgers
papers always leave him with a poorer impression than
when they come out in print. Part of the problem, according to Freud, was the particular patients that Sadger analyzed. The reasons for this antagonism lie for
xxxiii

the most part in the subjects that Sadger usually has.

This patient is an absolute swine. But some of the
blame lay with Sadger: Other motives for antagonism
lie in the speaker himself, above all on account of the
overwhelming mass of details that he presents, when he
should be presenting only the results (Nunberg and
Federn 1967:379).
The fact that Freud was occasionally outspoken in
his devastating criticism of Sadger must be taken into
account in evaluating Sadgers possible bias in his reporting of his personal recollections of Freud. In that
context, one might view the book as Sadgers one last
opportunity to retaliate somewhat for all the verbal
abuse he may have felt he had to endure.
Another clue to Sadgers personality comes from a
passage in Lou Andreas-Salomes (18611937) summary
of the discussion following Sadgers presentation On
the Sadomasochistic Complex given on November 6,
1912: Freud had not much to say by way of concluding remarks, and he excused us all for being bored.
He rightly supposed that if disgust with the topic did
not itself create resistances, objective interest would
have waned anyhow since the material, disgusting as it
was, was also not meaningfully organized. But there is
something about Sadger giving one the impression that
it is not so much ability that he lacks as the desire to
elevate the material through intellectual penetration
from the unattractiveness of its crude contentas if in
xxxiv

fact the demands of analysis disturbed his blissful

contemplation. He presumably enjoys his analysands
more than he helps them or learns anything from them
(Andreas-Salome 1987:41). Freuds actual remarks as reported in the minutes of the meeting included: As to
the paper itself, it is to be noted that the predominantly
clinical material placed great demands upon the listeners and that the work lacks organization and structure
(Nunberg and Federn 1975:119).
Another analyst, Helene Deutsch (18841982),
painted an even more disturbing portrait of Sadger.
It is found in Roazens biography of Deutsch. Helene
once remarked that at the first meeting of the society
she attended, Isidor Sadger gave a paper on flowers
in dreams; he had gone overboard in emphasizing the
sexual themes that Freud had introduced and Sadger
interpreted flowers as genital symbols. At the time Helene wondered to herself whether flowers could not also
be just flowers. Among his Viennese adherents Freud
put up with people he was dubious about. Sadger, for
instance, had an almost pornographic interest in sex.
(His own nails were dirty, and he would not even keep
his analytic couch clean for a patients head and feet.)
(Roazen 1985:150).
Another hint of Sadgers relationship to his patients
is afforded by two passages in an exchange of letters
between Freud and Ferenczi. Evidently a former patient
of Ferenczis from Pressburg had moved from Budapest
xxxv

to Vienna where he was being treated by Sadger. In a

letter of April 12, 1910, Freud wrote Ferenczi, Your
young man from Pressburg is also dissatisfied here with
Sadger; he likes you better as a person and he wants to
go back to you. . . . I will take this opportunity to point
out to you how wrong it is for you to charge ten crowns
per session when Sadger demands twenty. You see, the
ten didnt keep him with you and the twenty didnt keep
him from going to Sadger. Ferenczis answer, dated
April 17, included: The case of the young Pressburger
is a wonderful case of paranoia. . . . The case is not
suited to Sadgers somewhat coarse manner. The extraordinary role of projected homosexuality in paranoia
is also confirmed here (Brabant et al. 1992:161, 164).
Perhaps the most glaring anecdotal report of Sadgers alleged boorishness is found in a passage in Ernest
Joness autobiography. In describing the membership of
the Wednesday Psychological Society before it had become the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Jones had this
to say about Sadger: Sadger was active at that time, and
had not yet developed the curious reaction of mutism
he displayed for some years before disappearing from
the circle [Sadger resigned from the Society in 1933]. He
was a morose, pathetic figure, very like a specially uncouth bear. One of his social gaffes was so terrific that it
deserves recording. Seated at a Congress banquet next
to a distinguished literary lady, he fumbled his way
through the dinner, and finally ventured to address her.
xxxvi

His ever-memorable remark to this stranger was: Have

you occupied yourself with masturbation? one which
in its German guise was even more ambiguous than in
English (1959:169).
What then do we know about Sadger? Despite his
prolific writings, Sadger was never more than a minor
figure in the development of psychoanalysis, though
perhaps the rescue of this book from virtual oblivion
may elevate his status to some degree. He is barely
mentioned, if at all, in conventional histories of the
psychoanalytic movement. One of the few relatively
modern references to him refers to his having a dutiful and unoriginal mind (Lewes 1988:48). Yet he was
one of the earliest students of Freud, attending his lectures at the University of Vienna and he was an active
member, a very active member, of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Sadger was a frequent participant in
psychoanalytic congresses, including the very first one
held in Salzburg in 1908 and the one in Oxford in 1929.
In sheer terms of hours spent in the presence of Freud,
including auditing his lectures, Sadger had few peers.
Although members of Freuds inner circle did have the
benefit of revealing correspondence with Freud, they
did not live in ViennaAbraham, Sachs, and Eitingon
lived in Berlin, Ferenczi in Budapest, Jones in London
(Sachs 1944:159).
Sadger did make some contributions to psychoanalytic theory. His application of psychoanalytic theory
xxxvii

to homosexuality and particularly his suggestion that

narcissism was related to the development of homosexuality influenced Freud. It is true that in a survey
of the scholarship concerned with the psychoanalytic
approach to homosexuality, the comment is made that
early psychoanalysts such as Sadger were not particularly distinguished and are virtually unknown today,
except to specialists. In their rather large corpus of articles on homosexuality, there is very little disagreement
or original contribution. In fact, there is something
rather touching in the careful piety of these workers in
the field, gleaning in the train of their master (Lewes
1988:48).
Although Sadger did not invent the term narcissism (May 1991), he is generally credited with introducing it into psychoanalytic discourse (Pulver 1970;
Reigstad 1980; Macmillan 1997:529). Sadger used the
term in a paper (1908d) and on November 10, 1909, in
the second segment of his three-part presentation A
Case of Multiform Perversion when he remarked that
A large role is played by autoerotism in the form of
narcissism (Nunberg and Federn 1967:307). Freuds
reaction to the presentation was typical: The speaker
did not succeed in mastering the material and in arriving at a synthesis of the case. But he did give some
praise: Sadgers comment with regard to narcissism
seems new and valuable (312). In his comment on
Sadgers presentation On the Psychology of the Only
xxxviii

Child and the Favorite Child on October 5, 1910,

Freud agreed, A prolonged remaining at the transitory
stage of narcissism definitely predisposes to homosexuality (Nunberg and Federn 1974:13). Freud later proceeded to expand upon the concept in several essays,
including a footnote in his 1910 paper Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex and especially his 1914
paper On Narcissism: An Introduction (Gay 1988:
339; Henseller, 1991:195). Freud also gave credit to Sadger for the idea that all humans pass through an early
bisexual stage in childhood, for example, in his 1909
Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy (1959a:
251n.1) and his 1920 The Psychogenesis of a Case of
Homosexuality in a Woman (1959d:214). But in
retrospect, possibly the most important contribution
Sadger made was writing what may well be the first
book-length evaluative review of Freuds life and work.
It is a unique, perhaps unforgettable, portrait of Freud,
unlike any other, a curious anecdotal mixture of extravagant hyperbolic praise and pointed, sometimes acerbic, criticisms. And it was written byto modify the
conventional anthropological idiom of participant
observeran observant participant who was an eyewitness to the events he described. Why then has no
one until now thought to consult it?
One reason for the failure of anyone to read
Sadgers book is the fact that the few writers who even
mention it believed the false rumor that it had never
xxxix

been published. Here is Roazens account: In his idolization of Freud, Jones did his best to suppress anything
from being published about Freud which could be construed in an unflattering light. In the early 1930s Isidor
Sadger, one of Freuds Vienna followers from before
World War I, prepared a book on Freud; Jones was so
incensed by some of the interpretations in it that he
recommended in a letter to Federn that Sadger (who
was Jewish) be put into a concentration camp, if need
be, to make sure the book never appeared. (It was never
published.) (1976:351). Roazen cites as authority for
this statement a letter from Jones to Federn, dated October 10, 1933. If Jones really did read the book, he
must surely have been annoyed by Sadgers misspelling
of his first name as well as that of Hanns Sachs, not to
mention all the barbed criticisms of his idol Freud.
Vincent Brome in his biography of Jones gives a
similar account: Throughout the twenties and thirties
Jones was busy attacking any book which criticized
Freud or psycho-analysis, and one such book, by Isidor
Sadger, so incensed him that he went beyond all normal limits in a letter to Federn. He suggested that if
necessary Sadgerwho was Jewishshould be put in
a concentration camp to prevent the book appearing
(1983:186). Brome also cites a letter from Jones to Federn but gives the date as October 10, 1934. Lieberman
in his biography of Rank notes the discrepancy in the
date of the letter, 1933 versus 1934, adding that he had
xl

received a letter in 1984 from the son of Paul Federn

indicating that he had no knowledge of such a letter
to his father (1985:443n.15). Lieberman, however, notwithstanding the discrepancy repeats the false rumor:
In 1934, Jones was so upset with a manuscript written
by the Viennese analyst Isidor Sadger that, in order to
suppress it, he suggested Sadger be put in a concentration camp. (The suggestion was not followed, but neither was the manuscript published.) (65).
None of these authors, apart from reiterating
Joness mean-spirited seemingly anti-Semitic remark,
comment on the sad irony of it. For Sadger was in
fact sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on
September 10, 1942, where he died on the twentieth or
twenty-first of December of that year (Mhlleitner
1992:283). Even Mhlleitner, who compiled a remarkably impressive set of capsule biographies of every single member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, was
taken in by the rumor. Claiming that Sadgers manuscript Erinnerungen an Freud had been written by
the end of 1932, Mhlleitner says, Das Manuskript
wurde nicht publiziert und gilt als verschollen (283,
The manuscript was not published and must be considered as lost). Given this consensus, it is no wonder
that no serious scholar, either a pro- or anti-Freudian
would think about trying to find Sadgers book. There
is something fishy about the rumor, however. Since the
book was apparently published in 1930, it is not clear
xli

why Jones would be writing in either 1933 or 1934

urging that the book be suppressed.
The question remains, nevertheless, that if the
book was actually published, why is it that no one, the
above-mentioned false reports of it not being published
notwithstanding, has managed to stumble upon a copy
up to the present time? My own experience in connection with the book may shed some light on the answer
to that question.
In the course of carrying out research on a psychoanalytic study of orthodox Jewish character (Dundes
2002), I had occasion to review the literature on anal
erotic character. In re-reading the classic papers by
Jones and Abraham, I realized I had never seen the early
paper on the subject by Sadger in Die Heilkunde, cited
favorably by both authors. When I looked up Sadger
in my computer data base, I found not only the article
in question but the title of a book: Sigmund Freud:
Persnliche Erinnerungen. As I was not familiar with
that work, I decided to send for it via interlibrary loan
at the same time that I requested a copy of the anal
erotic character paper. In due course, the latter arrived,
but the effort to procure a copy of the former proved
unsuccessful. I was informed that there was no known
copy in the United States available for borrowing. Since
I knew that the book had been published in Vienna, I
asked if we could try to locate a copy in Europe and the
obliging staff at interlibrary loan agreed to do so. A few
xlii

weeks later, I learned that there was no known copy in

any European library available for borrowing.
I was told, however, there was one, just one, copy
listed that might be utilized and that copy was located
in the library at Keio University in Japan. Again, interlibrary loan made a request on my behalf and this time
with some partial success. Keio University library
kindly sent a photocopy of the books table of contents.
The chapter titles looked intriguing: My First Encounter with Freud, Contributions to the Study of Freuds
Character, Freud as Leader and Organizer, Freuds Wit,
From the Last Years of Freuds Life, etc. I next asked
interlibrary loan to request a photocopy of the entire
book, indicating that I was more than willing to pay
the cost of such. In February of 2001 my effort to obtain a photocopy hit a snag. The Keio University Mita
Media Center informed our interlibrary loan office
that it was unable to comply with my request. This is
because photocopying of this book is limited by the
copyright law. I did not then, nor do I now understand this reason for the refusal to photocopy the book.
First of all, the book was published in Vienna, not in
Japan, and secondly, the period of copyright had long
since expired. Still, I was, for the moment, stymied.
As it happened, one of my anthropology doctoral
students, Hideaki Matsuoka, had just finished his degree and was returning to his native Japan. I asked him
to do me a big favor and get me a photocopy of the
xliii

book. He first tried to do so via interlibrary loan from

his university, Tokyo Womans Christian University,
but to no avail. As only students and faculty at Keio
University were permitted to use books in its library, he
had to get a special letter of introduction from his university in order to have access to the book. Then he
went to Keio University where he personally made a
photocopy. A few weeks later, I found a photocopy of
Sadgers book in my mailbox. I then asked one of my
former students, Johanna Micaela Jacobsen, a doctoral
student in folklore and folklife at the University of
Pennsylvania, to undertake a preliminary translation of
the book and she was kind enough to do so.
I mention all this to explain why even if someone did
know that Sadgers book was published, it would not be
all that easy to find a copy to read. As to the reason why
the book is in so few libraries, one can only speculate. In
view of Joness alleged hostility to the book and his hope
that the book would be suppressed, one is tempted to
speculate that pro-Freudians might have taken Joness
request seriously and purchased as many copies of the
original book as possible in order to destroy them. The
book does not even seem to be included in the official
list of books contained in Freuds personal library. But
this kind of conspiracy theory seems unlikely.
There is one final question that must be raised and
that is: Why should a book on Freud dating from 1930
be translated now in the twenty-first century, almost
xliv

Recollecting Freud

Fortunate is the man who feels foreign greatness

And who makes it his own through love.
Grillparzer

Preface

I reserve the right in these purely personal recollections

to show the whole of Freud in all of his extraordinary
genius as well as in his mistakes. I am well aware of the
danger that critics may simply pounce upon the latter.
They would see only the vulnerable spot on the totality
of Achilles, his heel! But no one is immune from malicious criticism. And perhaps it is this obsessive attempt
to belittle a scholar using any means available that is
precisely the proof of that scholars importance. Were
he not so great, who would take the trouble to seek to
make him less so? There is one more thing that I would
like to add: The following chapters contain nothing
other than what I personally experienced, and the impressions that Freuds character, his actions and his writing made on me. In no place have I sought to present
biographical details that I did not myself witness.

My First Encounter
with Freud

It was in September of 1895 that my recently deceased

colleague Dr. Max Kahane [18661923] approached me
with the question of whether I might not want to attend the lectures on psychoneuroses scheduled to be
given by Docent Sigmund Freud. I had little enthusiasm for the prospect of doing so. Up until that time, I
had read only a very interesting but hardly epochmaking study on aphasia by Freud and I had heard further that as an assistant to [Theodor] Meynert [1833
1892], he had, with the help of a government stipend,
gone to France and had translated the lectures of [Jean
Martin] Charcot [18251893] and [Hippolyte] Bernheim [18401919] into German.
More than that about him, I did not know nor had
I yet at that time made his personal acquaintance. Finally, my respect for clinical assistants in psychiatry was
never very great and totally psychiatric periodicals or
7

even books seemed to me something that God could

only have put into the world in His greatest wrath. If
these two types of publications were not named among
the plagues of Egypt, it is only because God Himself
did not think of such plagues during the times of the
blessed Pharaoh.
So it was that I didnt exactly respond to Kahanes
suggestion with shouts of joy. It required repeated pressure and prodding on Kahanes part until I finally decided to register for Freuds lectures. Dr. Max Kahane,
Dr. Isidor Fischer, gynecologist and current Docent for
the history of medicine, and finally yours truly were the
first three students to be introduced to Freuds theory
of neuroses. To be more precise, in the winter semester
of 18951896, Freud covered neurasthenia and anxiety
neuroses; in the summer semester of 1896, hysteria and
compulsive neuroses. Of these three auditors, Max Kahane soon devoted himself almost entirely to physical
therapy, Dr. Fischer up until the present day works
only as a gynecologist and never practiced psychoanalysis, so that I can justifiably claim to be the oldest at the
very least among the practicing students of Freud.
I would not mention all these circumstances in
such great detail had Freud not fully repressed the
recollection of that first set of lectures in his History of
the Psychoanalytic Movement together with many
other details which were, so to speak, erased from his
memory. This genius had, moreover, among his great
8

intellectual gifts also the invaluable capacity of being

able to completely forget entirely unpleasant matters.
These include the fact that he started from such small
beginnings, that the three who first attended his lectures had to be drummed up with great difficulty and
furthermore that this was done by one of them [Kahane] with whom he would later have a falling out.
This was to his way of thinking not a happy memory.
For a great man who has worked his way up from
humble origins, there are two possibilities: Either he
places his tattered boots with which he marched into
town under a glass dome and tells everyone, In these
tattered boots I came into town and now I am a great
man! or he never had to wear torn boots in the first
place. Freud never had such boots; he was a great man
from the very beginning.
But now back to the first set of lectures. Freud began
his lecture with a critical review of the state of knowledge about neurasthenia and hysteria, not failing to
note the lack of success of the current healing treatments. What he presented every thinking neurologist
must have already said to himself and at most his precise
and sparkling formulations were highly engaging. Still,
criticizing ones predecessors is always the easiest part of
any science. After this striking critical introduction, I
was eager to know what new ideas would be set forth.
And then there actually came something truly amazing.
I heard for the first time that there were specific and
9

decisive sexual causes of psychoneuroses, more particularly that actual harmful injury was related to neurasthenia and anxiety neuroses, and on the other hand,
infantile psychological factors were determinants of
hysteria and compulsive neuroses. Freud then elaborated these ideas using examples from individual cases
in his practice.
It was now necessary to test these amazing new
notions with the very same critical acuity that Freud
himself had employed with respect to earlier scientific
views. This was relatively easy to accomplish through
actual neuroses by means of which one could directly
test therapeutic efficacy. Here the results were often
truly astonishing and since one could, with a knowledge
of etiology, quickly and without difficulty eliminate the
harmful cause, this portion of Freudian doctrine was
even accepted by mainstream neurology without further difficulty. Even today, in investigating cases of severe anxiety, one dares to ask whether perhaps inappropriate means were utilized to prevent conception and a
privy councilor is even said to have boldly asked a sweet
eighteen-year-old girl whether or not she masturbated.
It was more difficult to verify the approaches to hysteria and compulsive neuroses, especially because the
technique of the procedure, even for the discoverer,
was, so to speak, still in swaddling clothes. The Interpretation of Dreams did not yet exist at that time. Nor
did Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and there was
10

no knowledge of the Oedipus and Castration complexes, nor of Narcissism, guilt feelings, and the superego. At best, one spoke of hysterical patients suffering
from diminished affect, conversion, abreaction, and
memory. If one had, as I did, quite the bad luck to get
among the first cases the most desperate ones, for example, the most severe compulsive neuroses that had
lasted for yearsand at that time only other equally
desperate cases were willing to undergo psychoanalytic
treatmentit becomes understandable that one was
not always prepared to deal with them. Nevertheless, I
was satisfied with my results, especially if I compared
the successes of psychoanalysis with the outcomes of
other conventional methods such as bromine and
opium, electricity and water cures, hypnosis, and socalled psychotherapy, methods that in spite of many
applications in complicated cases failed completely.
I need to make several additional observations
about the style and character of those first lectures.
At that time, since there was still too much groping,
tentativeness, and uncertainty in the study of psychoneuroses, Freuds expressions were not a breath of fresh
air, were not marked by the classic simplicity that
would characterize his later papers. At any rate, many
features were enjoyable and one was not used to hearing such from clinics. What was missing, first of all, was
all that psychiatric gibberish, all that scrambling after
new technical terminology that only the initiated could
11

understand and by which experts can recognize one another, just as the Roman Augurs did to the extent that
they would be provoked to the point of laughter. If it
can be said about anything, one could legitimately describe modern psychiatry as a misuse of its own private
terminology, invented for this very purpose.
This difference between Freud and most other
scientists I will illustrate with one single example, one
that doesnt even involve a psychiatrist. When [Josef ]
Breuer [18421925] and Freud first considered the question of the psychological mechanism of hysteria, Breuer
created the theory of hypnoid states while Freud
interpreted the mental breakdown of the hysteric as the
result of a defense, later called repression. In this
departure from any foreign language nomenclature,
there lies more than just simple purism. Oh, what a
poor language German is! What a crude language! says
Riccaut de la Marlinire. If a scientist wants to conceal
the lack of clarity in his thought, wants to keep anyone
from noticing how little he has achieved in reaching the
solution to a problems questions, he will first of all,
with the help of a Latin or Greek dictionary, preferably
invent a new technical expression, if possible, one that
is totally unprecedented. In contrast, one who still uses
pure German words will be compelled by this means
alone to achieve maximum clarity and comprehension.
One notices on the spot in the German turn of phrase
if something hovers not fully formed in the mind of the
12

discoverer. A thing can be said in straightforward German or in fraudulent gibberish. Freud was a master
from the start, precisely in his choice of appropriate,
lucid, instantly grasped technical terms.
In addition to this clarity and overall intelligibility,
Freuds lectures had still other good qualities that one
seldom finds so felicitously combined. Above all, he
had an unrelentingly sharp logic that was not intimidated by any authority and furthermore an ever-ready
wit, especially employed against adversaries who were
always endeavoring to quash his genius by a failure to
understand the closely packed body of material. If to
this remarkable pedagogical talent that could in and of
itself introduce the most difficult trains of thought
with ease, we add finally, as well, his specific dialectic
that anticipated and refuted every possible objection
and opposition, then one will understand the great
charisma that Freud already exhibited in his first lectures in the year 1895, a charisma that increased ever
more with the passing years. None of my other university professors could, by way of example, have easily reiterated all of the basic principles to me always with refreshing delight, to transmit the system of knowledge
concerning psychoneuroses over a period of twentytwo years, each time from a different angle, always with
new unfolding perceptions. In what follows, I will have
occasion to further clarify these qualities in more detail.

13

Freud as Speaker and

Writer, Stylist and Critic

In the previous chapter, I described the impression that

the first lectures of Freud made on me at a point in
time when he was engaged in his earliest exploratory
writings and everything was still in a stage of development. So now I will sketch the professor during the
time of the height of his intellectual powers when his
wisdom generated new annual tree-rings from one moment to the next. To listen to Freud was in and of itself
sheer pleasure. He spoke simply and plainly in an
everyday fashion, as if in a private two-party face-toface conversation. Never did I hear from him a trite
phraseunless it was an expression of condolence. He
lacked all traces of pathos and every high-flying rhetorical flourish that experienced speakers were able to easily fabricate in order to make a good exit line. Only
now and then did a couple flashes of humor suddenly
illuminate a problem. For Freud, Goethes words never
14

held true: It is only the lecture that accounts for the

speakers luck. Quite the contrary. His deepest insights
were stated almost conversationally, not as a professor
ex cathedra, nor as a flashy orator. Rather they came as
if from a contemplative thinker whose thoughts were
slowly released from his soul. At all times factual and
objective, he made a point of avoiding any deception.
When he was merely trying to persuade, he chose almost exclusively German expressions, even for the most
difficult trains of thought, demonstrating a masterful
command of language. He was not interested so much
in the momentary effect but rather in presenting the
truth and in being understood. There was also no feigning of pretended profundity, no colorful linguistic terminology, comprehensible to only the most initiated
few. Instead, insights were dropped, as it were, in conversation. I have never known anyone else who knew
how to say such deep things in the most light, conversational manner.
I always found admirable his knack of playfully
introducing listeners to even the most theoretical material. A critic once spoke quite aptly of Freuds irresistible pedagogy. Of what did this knack consist? I believe it was based on two different teaching techniques.
First of all, the professor knew how to make his listeners think that they already understood all the things
that he had just creatively presented to them for the
first time so that it somehow felt as though he had not
15

actually taught them anything new at all. This was

clearly a trait of someone with a fine-tuned knowledge
of human nature. Generally speaking, people do not
tend to think that someone else is smarter than they
hold themselves to be. On the contrary, as soon as such
a thought enters their consciousness, they become extremely angry. It is quite annoying to have to become
acquainted with new ideas; one could almost say it was
an unreasonable impertinence to be asked to do so. He
who puts new things, presumably truths, into my brain
violates not merely the eternal brazen law of idleness,
and not only scares me out of my well deserved rest, but
even worse, he lays claim to being smarter and a deeper
thinker than my own magnificent self. This leads naturally to everyones narcissism erupting, especially if contrasted with an as yet unrecognized greatness.
Freud approached these things quite differently.
One example may stand for many. At the Psychoanalytic Congress in Berlin [September 1922, the last of
these congresses attended by Freud], he presented for
the first time, publicly, the concept of unconscious
guilt-feelings. But how carefully, with what calculation
of human frailty, did he do so. As always, it began with
his familiar playing to the narcissism of his listeners.
You know, he would begin, we distinguish between a
Conscious and an Unconscious. That you all know, of
course! The listener would feel quite pleased with himself. And then we distinguish in the Unconscious an
16

uppermost layer, the Preconscious, which without further treatment can become conscious, and a repressed
Unconscious that we have to first, with some effort,
bring to light through our psychoanalytic method. But
you all know that as well! There is absolute assent by
the entire audience; their sense of well-being soars.
What a truly enjoyable speaker! And then we also have
an unconscious guilt feeling which often controls our
actions to a very wide extent. But you all know that
too! Two minutes earlier, certainly no one in the entire
circle had known any of this, yet since the Professor
had so benevolently assumed that all those present had
such knowledge, one had to think that one must already have known this in some corner of his mind.
This was also highly supportive, unconsciously, to ones
own sense of superiority. And inasmuch as one had already known these things all along, there was no real
reason to disagree. On the contrary, one was thrilled
with oneself and believed this to be a result of the new
teachings. Talking to oneself after these so effective
intellectual introductions removed just the instinctive
opposition, the hatred of the new, of proselytism, not
the contradiction of reason.
A second characteristic of Freuds pedagogy consisted in the fact that he always sought to anticipate any
possible objection, by saying it himself and immediately rebutting it before the listener could even have
time to think about it. (A striking example of this can
17

be found in the first chapter of the Introductory Lectures

on Psychoanalysis, spoken more or less in the same way
as it is now presented in written form.) Moreover, the
Professor demonstrated that he was so much more intelligent than those present, raising objections that no
one had thought of, and, in a way, showing them how
smart and wise they could have been. On the other
hand, however, he took care not to play the part of a
fault-finding genius bringing their inferiority to consciousness. Rather, he spoke always, as it were, as a representative of the audience in which everyone was just
as smart as the lecturer himself. And again everyone
present in the group felt edified by their own wisdom.
The above was an attempt to present Freuds innate
ability to teach, the intuitive pedagogy he exhibited,
which he took care to utilize in his lectures. Though
at hand were, to be sure, such means fit to effectively
neutralize objections from the outset, stemming from
vulnerable narcissism and a state of mental laziness.
However, these means were not what made his essays
delightful reading, which they were in truth for everyone. There is yet one more decisive additional factor
that I will now discuss in more detail.
All his life, Freud was reflective and speculativeI
almost want to say he was compulsive in natureand
he had, as such, always a lot to say. What was more important is that he was not just merely reflective, he was,
over and above that, a genius, that is, he usually had the
right idea, or if he did not hit the bulls-eye, he would at
18

least have hit the nearest concentric circle and then hit
the center on the second shot. If, however, he once in a
while appeared to miss the mark, as originally was the
case with compulsive neurosis, it did not stop him from
ten years later going all the way back to begin anew to
finally find the solution on the basis of much more experience. On a walk years ago, he once told me how he
had found one key after another to the understanding
of hysteria. And in conversation, he once remarked, If
one approaches a thing without preconceptions, then
one will find something. He also liked to quote the
words of Charcot: One has to look at things for a long
time and over and over again until they begin to tell you
something. But for them to tell you the correct thing,
to be sure, one must be not only reflective, but also a
genius, especially in so difficult a field as psychiatry.
However, from Freud, we have also learned never to
be satisfied with just one solution. In psychiatric matters, one must always look for layers and for different
forces struggling with one another. The master taught
that Clarity is in science always a falsification! Truth
is always complicated and not particularly obvious!
Obvious and clear, things became persuasive at first
mostly when tamed by Freuds presentation. And then
at its best in a live lecture, not when he was at his desk
condensing material for publication. After he had
spoken flawlessly for nearly two hours at his Saturday
lecture, there was literally no more doubt and no lack
of understanding.
19

Yet even more significant, however, are my memories of the circle of intimates at the Wednesday evening
meetings, the first of which were then still held in the
home of the Professor himself. To hear the Professor
lecture there on some new discovery, to some extent
in statu nascendi, belongs to the most memorable experiences of my life. I cannot describe the impression
as anything other than overwhelming. Ever since my
student days, I have always been attracted to genius,
though that certainly is very rarely found among those
holding academic positions. I have listened to several
very different geniuses, receiving from them a variety of
impressions, for example, from the lectures of Theodor
Meynert, the teacher of Freud. To listen to his lecture
for three-quarters of an hour was one of the most exhausting experiences one could imagine. He spoke in a
condensed manner, to an extreme degree, and, in addition, not infrequently in twisted turns of phrase. One
could sense the breath of genius, but at the end of such
a lecture one was worn out. Truthfully, one had to
struggle for the pleasure by the sweat of ones brow.
It was also not always easy to listen to Freud. On
those occasions when Freud had stored up his knowledge for a long time, he would give such a profusion
of detail that a normal brain could no longer accommodate it. I remember, for example, a lecture on compulsive neurosis when Freud spoke for no less than
three hours. Now, the listeners capacity for absorbing
20

is ultimately limited. One could follow for the first two

hours in spite of the fact that one was overwhelmed in
due course with new viewpoints and outlooks, and one
had great difficulty even in hastily taking in the materials presented. In the third hour my brain failed. It was
not Freud who failed, because I believe that this genius
could have continued to speak all night in such a fashion, still presenting ever new materials. Only where to
put this tremendous rich harvest? Here one could only
listen with ones ears and let the overflow wash over on
oneself. Later Freud presented the same subject, though
in essentially abridged form, at the first psychoanalytic
congress in Salzburg [April 26, 1908]. It was again
something different with many new things, though not
with the superabundance of insights as that time in
Vienna. Still, it nevertheless made an overwhelming
impression on such inflexible and critical individuals as
Eugen Bleuler [18571939] and C. G. Jung [18751961].
And finally the topic was put before us for a third time,
namely in print. This now compressed the topic into a
completely condensed form, packed with insight, but
without the magic of his inspiring spoken words.
It was also highly enthralling to listen to Freud in
discussion. There was no better, more insightful, and no
more convincing critic than he, that is, if he chose to be
critical. Time and time again, the following observation
could be made. For hours, the dialogue had dragged on.
People continued to speak on and on, endlessly, each
21

one talking past one another, without capturing let

alone convincing the other. A certain weariness showed
on everyones face; people sat with drooping eyelids. Finally, Freud himself takes the floor and with one stroke
all the paralyzing fatigue goes away and all eyes fix on
him. Often the professor had only to utter a single sentence and the whole, endless, fruitless debate would be
instantly elucidated. As Max Kahane once aptly said,
Roma locuta est, causa finita [Rome has spoken, the
case is closed]. However, this came about not because
of the force of decreed infallibility but rather because
each one of the listeners felt Here was the right solution. Some people came every Wednesday just for the
sake of one such single sentence that they then carried
home as if it were a treasure. In the first days, it was still
the custom to write the names of all the members on
little slips of paper that our secretary would then draw
by lot out from the urn. Whoever was selected had to
speak. If by some bad luck Professor Freud was the first
to speak, that made any further discussion almost
superfluous. Dr. Kahane once said to me, Once he has
spoken, no more grass can grow. Since, for better or
worse, what was of principal importance had already
been exhaustively stated, one could at best present only
a modest addendum.
No less unerring and all-consuming was also the
criticism that one on occasion had from Freud in private. Thus I remember once reading him a paper in
22

which I believed I had discovered many new things.

Freud listened to me, while pacing back and forth,
smoking the whole time. When I finished, he asked,
Now do you want to hear my opinion? And then he
launched into his response and gave me, then and
there, reactions to all my new discoveries which he had
just heard for the first time. And what reactions they
were! Every word was precisely crafted and could have
been published even though sometimes demolishing
my findings. Where I had believed that I had found
something new, it turned out that Freud had already
known this all along but simply hadnt published it.
And that his words were not merely empty phrases was
made clear by the fact that he had already advanced so
much further than I had. With one sentence, he would
lead me to a last insight which I had still not seen. One,
suddenly felt very small in front of the giant. That was
Sigmund Freud, the critic, on good days. But there was
another Freud who would occasionally like to put forth
during his bad moods opposing even his most faithful
followers. Then the otherwise so generous man became
petty, carping, and cranky, spewing forth isolated words
and phrases. No more were there signs of progress, or
speeches full of creative instructive evaluation. Only extreme discomfort remained for the injured party who
would have liked to have given up completely.
And now to turn to Freud the writer, the word artist and great stylist. Even a person who never had the
23

good fortune to hear the Professor personally will be

fascinated by the very special magic of his writings. I
will not compare his works with the intellectual products of other psychiatrists. It is not an absolute prerequisite of science that a great scholar must also be able to
write well. To be sure, Understanding and accurate
meaning can be conveyed with little art, as Goethe
maintained. However, the psychiatric literature is especially rife with unbelievable jargon, much more so
in comparison with other disciplines. It no longer remains comprehensible to our medical colleagues. Their
principal trick, then, consists of every two years sending out into the world some technical terms, preferably
as hard to understand as possiblea true theory of
emissionsand managing to muddle long-understood
disease diagnostics and to pour old wine into newly
labeled wineskins. In my sinful youth, I had learned
about adolescent madness, better known as hebephrenia, and paranoia. Later under [Emil] Kraepelins
[18561926] influence, the names were changed to dementia praecox and paranoides whereby not without
some mischievous pleasure, it was proposed to throw
out paranoia altogether replacing it with paraphrenia
in Kraepelins sense of the word. On the other hand, it
was readily admitted that in any nice case of dementia
praecox, neither dementia nor praecocitas had to be
present. So surely this was truly the most appropriate
designation!
24

But the laurels from Miltiades to Themistocles

never rested so that Bleuler invented schizophrenia
or schizothymia to which Kretschmer recently added
schizoid personality. This once again shows how right
Fritz Reuters [18101874] Uncle Brsig was in saying
that the poor arise from great poverty. An even prettier
mess was the situation when individual symptoms of
schizophrenia were involved. With the help of Latin
and Greek dictionaries, new technical terms were
created for each of the many symptoms, terms which
without exception were so wonderfully clear that one
had first to explain them to the doctor. It is still worth
considering the unforeseen good luck that there were
so few colleagues that spoke Sanskrit that this source
for psychiatric nomenclature was little used. In any
case, in psychiatry one must keep up to date and above
all, read its journals. Otherwise, one has to relearn
everything every two years or be left behind as someone
who no longer counts.
It is worth noting that mainstream psychiatry took
no notice of Freud for so long other than at most a variety of malicious remarks at a time when he made an
effort to use faultless German using only the simplest
expressions intelligible to all. It was only during his
last years when the Professor moved a little towards
metaphysicsapproximately after Beyond the Pleasure
Principle [1920], and though it was not jargon, there
were expressions such as Eros and Thanatos, the Ego,
25

the Ego Ideal, and the Id, and occasionally losing himself in speculationthat Freud became more sympathetic to psychiatry. He began gradually to rise to the
pinnacle of the psychiatric profession, worthy of becoming the most profound of all sciences. Now Goethe
said:
A fellow who speculates
Is like an animal on dry heather,
Who is led around in a circle by an evil spirit
And all around lies beautiful green pasture.
But in the dark times of Goethe, classic psychiatry as
we know it today did not yet exist.
But let us return to Freud the stylist and to the specifics of his writing style. In order to stay, first of all,
with outward appearances, I would like to say that in his
diction, in his sentences, everything is simple, straightforward and great. And the shorter the piece, the more
delightful it is. His short papers that at the outside
scarcely come to no more than eight to ten printed
pages are, frankly, showcase pieces for the art of scientific presentation. Nevertheless Freud always remains a
person with a great natural modesty, never forgetting
that a genius is never more than a fallible human.
In one of his latest works, written whilst already
surrounded by the specter of death, I read, deeply
moved, these words:

26

In the following pages I bring forward some

findings of analytic research which would be of
great importance if they could be proved to
apply universally. Why do I not postpone publication of them until further experience has given
me the necessary proof, if such proof is obtainable? Because the conditions under which I
work have undergone a change, with implications which I cannot disguise. Formerly, I was
not one of those who are unable to hold back
what seems to be a new discovery until it has
been either confirmed or corrected. My Interpretation of Dreams and my Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria [1905] were suppressed
by meif not for the nine years enjoined by
Horaceat all events for four or five years before I allowed them to be published. But in those
days I had unlimited time before meoceans of
time as an amiable author puts itand material
poured in upon me in such quantities that fresh
experiences were hardly to be escaped. Moreover, I was the only worker in a new field, so that
my reticence involved no danger to myself and
no loss to others.
But now everything has changed. The time
before me is limited. The whole of it is no longer
spent in working, so that my opportunities for

27

making fresh observations are not so numerous.

If I think I see something new, I am uncertain
whether I can wait for it to be confirmed. And
further, everything that is to be seen upon the
surface has already been exhausted; what remains has to be slowly and laboriously dragged
up from the depths. Finally, I am no longer
alone. An eager crowd of fellow-workers is ready
to make use of what is unfinished or doubtful,
and I can leave to them that part of the work
which I should otherwise have done myself. On
this occasion, therefore, I feel justified in publishing something which stands in urgent need
of confirmation before its value or lack of value
can be decided. [Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between
the Sexes, 1925]
Here in a short specimen, we find everything that
makes Freuds personally painted communications so
captivating: a plain, purely human narrative, full of
discretion and tremendous intelligence. If the materials required it, Freud could become half poet, but he
was always entirely a man of science with a nearly inexhaustible abundance of new thoughts. Sometimes
these would pour out in such profusion that he could
hardly manage to control them. Then the reader would
have the greatest difficulty in biting through this
28

mountain of milk and honey, and he would have to

study again and again in order to scoop out everything
that had been squeezed into a few lines. But this held
only occasionally for what was fixed in writing, for the
reading of what was printed, because in his live lectures, Freud always had compassion for his listeners
and their troublesome lagging comprehension. For that
reason, one can say of him as was said about Goethe:
What he spoke was better than what he wrote.
When I look over Freuds works, it seems to me that
in terms of purely stylistic features, extraordinary progress is unmistakable. One remembers, for example, that
his first psychoanalytic writings were certainly tentative
experiments. Everything was still amply stuffed with
foreign and technical terms from the witches brew of
psychiatry. Only the few case histories which so grace
the Studies on Hysteria [1895] betray already the claw of
a lion with its nearly poetic narrative talent that can
transform casuistry into short stories. Then came in
the first place, the great Interpretation of Dreams [1900]
that brought new ground-breaking explanations for
what was up until then as good as an incomprehensible
domain of the mind. And yet how unpedagogical are
his ideas almost suffocating in their enormous quantity. Five years later followed the already classically
written Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality [1905], in
every respect totally great Freud. But even here there
are several lapses into the unpedagogical. And the most
29

widely circulated of his writings, The Psychopathology of

Everyday Life [1901], was not free of it either where
psychopathology, a proper psychiatric term, was noticeably replaced in the Lectures by the German word
Fehlleistung [a failed effort or mistake]. I wont even
mention some of Freuds last treatises, such as Beyond
the Pleasure Principle [1920] and The Ego and the Id
[1923]. At the same time, however, such works as Delusions and Dreams in Jensens Gradiva [1907], Group
Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego [1921], the classic
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis [19161917], as
well as, finally, The Question of Lay Analysis [1926] are
stylistic masterpieces regardless of whether or not one
might raise pertinent objections to their conclusions. In
truth, one cannot express enough regret that Freud was
prevented from presenting the full extent of his ideas.
This was because illness and advancing old age prevented him from concentrating sufficiently on permanently setting down these ideas in writing. I have just
touched on a point of decisive importance with respect
to Freuds particular specific genius: the abundance and
correctness of his ideas. They were so overpowering due
to the boldness and magnitude of his thought, the
breadth of his vision, and the lightning-like penetrating
connections. And then, time and time again, there was
the reflective judgment as to whether there was possibly
a mistake or a contradiction. Such prudence is entirely
unheard of among university professors in establishing
30

new tenets and basic principles. This is most evident in

the first two parts of his Lectures. Freud never forces the
facts to fit his theory, but always remains objective and
perspicacious. And as for negative virtues, he had no
trace of moral hypocrisy, he never played judge which
in matters of sexuality and decency is not always an
easy thing. Perhaps one will admire his objectivity even
more when one finds out that Freud was at heart an
awful sadist who had to force himself to be scientifically dispassionate, that further he was misunderstood
for many years by his opponents, one could say often
intentionally, and that finally he had the ability to destroy someone with one sentence, friend as well as foe.
So I can at this point conclusively declare: I know of
no other medical researcher whose lectures and writings so impress me as being classic: simple and great.

31

Contributions to the Study

of Freuds Character

One trait, especially, comes to the fore in a portrait of

Freuds character: his incredible love of truth. To be
sure, one would think that this would go without saying for any scientist. For without absolute honesty, one
can not accomplish anything worthwhile in science. As
a matter of fact, however, the courage to be truthful,
and not be held back by ones own ego, is a great rarity,
at least among mentally healthy individuals. With Sigmund Freud, there is honesty, if it becomes necessary,
to the point of unsparing self-revelation. In his preface
to The Interpretation of Dreams, he said it this way:
The only dreams open to my choice were my
own and those of my patients undergoing
psychoanalytic treatment. But I was precluded
from using the latter material by the fact that in
this case the dream-processes were subject to an
32

undesirable complication owing to the added

presence of neurotic features. But if I was to report my own dreams, it inevitably followed that I
should have to reveal to the public gaze more of
the intimacies of my mental life than I liked, or
than is normally necessary for any writer who is a
man of science and not a poet. Such was the painful but unavoidable necessity; and I have submitted to it rather than totally abandon the possibility of giving the evidence for my psychological
findings. [Preface to the First Edition, 1900]
Only in one point did Freud deviate from the truth,
even though it was completely unconscious and stemming from his own unresolved complexes. I had to witness how he once offered Jung, who was at that time
one of his pets, a discovery that he himself had made.
He had simply identified himself with Jung. Naturally,
this caused considerable head-shaking among the intimates of the circle and one of them made the Professor
aware of the fact that the supposed discovery of Jung
was already to be found in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. This Freud had completely forgotten
and he was quite astonished when he was shown the
passage in his book. This ungrudging surrender of his
own thoughts will continue to concern us.
Here I would just like to mention another character
trait of Freud. He had an appetite for new people,
33

always needing other individuals who, when he was

finished with them, he would, of course, get rid of with
the same ease with which he had acquired them. It is
really amazing how many teachers and former students
Freud broke off relations with over the years after they
had been so close to him for a short or long period of
time. As such, I will name only the most noteworthy:
Breuer and Fliess, Jung and Bleuler, Adler and Stekel,
Kahane and Wittels. As is the case with severely ill
mental patients, he did not allow his ego to establish
any permanent or long-lasting relationships, unless
such a relationship was with people who lived far away
and who willingly acquiesced to everything. An old
doctor once maintained, Collegiality expands with
the square of the distance. That is exactly right. From
Vienna to New York, collegiality is enormously great,
not much less than infinity. For England, France, and
Switzerland, it is considerable. But if one lives in the
same town, however, or better yet in one and the same
alley, one would love to drown the beloved colleague in
a glass of water.
Freuds behavior is a case in point. He got along
best and for the longest time with the leaders of the
groups furthest away, in London, Budapest, and Berlin. He did not come into personal contact with them
very frequently; they swore blindly by his every word,
and they responded to every signal that came from
Berggasse (Freuds residence in Vienna). In their
34

essays and reviews they would present literally everything the master desired. So they received the warm
rays of the merciful sun, repaying the debt on their part
with the most extreme devotion.
Freud was different in the narrower circle that came
together weekly or later biweekly. To be sure, the recruit, the newcomer, mostly got to play first fiddle in
heaven. As a rule, Freud was full of captivating amiability on those occasions, a regular fisher of souls as
Adler once called him. No one could resist the magic of
this master and he could literally win over anyone that
he wished to. Then the honeymoon would be over, and
one day, perhaps at a lecture where the newcomer had
done his best, he had to live through the experience
whereby the Professor would, so to speak, tear him to
pieces in public. Freud had the same ability to give
high praise as he otherwise did to destroy and grind
someone into the ground. About this, everyone in the
circle had such a story to tell. For Freud deep down
inside was a terrible sadist which cost his enemies less
than his students and most loyal followers. None of
those who stood near him or were allowed to approach
him would be spared the boot, sooner or later. One
person would leave him with simpering masochistic
happiness; another would clench his fist in his pocket;
a third preferred years of silence in order to avoid any
occasion that would necessarily have led to an estrangement. Ever since one of the acquiescent, the right
35

hand of psychoanalysis [presumably Otto Rank],

quite literally a creation of Freud, living in thrall, had
to learn that the path from power to the gallows is only
a short distance, I was absolutely convinced that none
of the closest students would be able to remain in a
trouble-free harmonious relationship with the Professor for a lifetime. For the Berlin Congress [1922], the
Psychoanalytic Press published an elegant bound calendar, graced with the latest photograph of Freud. When
I caught sight of it, I was horrified. How could anyone
have chosen such an image! That was surely the face of
an ill-natured sadist, not the thinker we all knew! On
the other hand, we have just this sadism as a reaction to
Freuds captivating amiability to thank as characteristic
consequences of his enormous energy that allowed him
to oppose a world of enemies.
In the last chapter I emphasized what a superabundance of new ideas Freud constantly produced. If one
had not seen him for two months, perhaps during vacation time, he was already a totally different person in
conversation. One had just barely become acquainted
with his last train of thought only to find out that the
master was already again ten miles ahead of everyone so
that keeping pace with him or catching up with him
seemed impossible. Never have I had the impression of
standing before another such man, before a genius, as
with Freud. If the term ingenious applies to any mortal, not in the trivial sense, but literally, then it would
36

apply to the Professor. He was ruled often by such an

overwhelming wealth of new ideas that he alone was
not able to carry them all through to completion. He
had to give them away as presents in order not to be
smothered by his own gold. He was a grand-master of
thought who gave away ideas with princely generosity,
ideas so great that a well established privy councilor
and university professor could have given lectures on
them for a whole semester, bringing fame and fortune
to his faculty.
For years, Wilhelm Stekel had the reputation of
being a bright or even a genius writer from devouring
the countless ideas that Freud would toss carelessly
under the table every Wednesday. What he would write
in various newspapers was truly often of genius quality,
but it was never a question of the genius of a Stekel,
a man who with his eyes wide open could hardly discover anything, but the genius of a Freud. To be sure,
this fact was not infrequently obscured in journalistic
reproduction, especially since the Professor on one
Wednesday evening expressly declared: What I say
here is for the taking; you can do with it as you please.
How incredibly generous Freud was with new ideas!
How many of his students did he not only stimulate
with such ideasthat would be self-evident and completely legitimatebut he also gave them away as a direct gift, that is to say, he not only elucidated ideas for
them, but he of his own accord ceded his intellectual
37

property, what he alone had discovered. When, generally speaking, a joint project is published, say by Privy
Councilor and Professor X and Dr. Y, one could usually swear that Professor X simply provided his name in
this case and kindly, as the lovely phrase goes, made
available the material from his clinic. Everything else,
however, all the real work was done by Dr. Y alone.
With Freud, it was the opposite. The idea was his, and
so was the astute observation, as well as the broad connections. It was merely often just the feeble execution
that was left for others. If Freud, however, was full of
good will, then he would take the essay of a student
and improve it from beginning to end, so that the only
thing remaining from the students original contribution were the auxiliary verbs. Everything else was the
Professors contribution, only that he would then, in
addition, not put his name on it and give the whole
thing to his colleague as a present. At most, he would
betray his collaboration by warmly defending the one
under attack if an objection was raised in discussion.
The very best ideas Freud gave only rarely to
local colleagues, at most just to the house factotum
[Otto] Rank. Usually, chairmen of the foreign regional
groups were chosen who thereby were given fame and
reputationnaturally apart from their own obvious
intellectual greatness. And again I am reminded of the
nice phrase: Collegiality expands with the square of
the distance. Of course, one must in fairness admit
38

that other factors played a part in the Professors negative attitude. Above all, the extreme decisive actions
of Viennese colleagues, especially the circle of experts.
Did not the Viennese neurologists not only fail to recognize him, but they also ridiculed him and branded
his teachings as quackery? Even those doctors who did
not aspire to an academic career and thus did not have
to pay attention to any puff of wind coming from
above, did not they too learn that psychoanalysis was
humbug, if not to say filthiness? But, as is well known,
the actual validation of criticism is the very least little
thing. So Freuds hostility towards the Viennese doctors
is easily understood, but certainly the most innocent,
especially the closest students, suffered the most. And it
is possible to imagine that Freud, by favoring lay analysis, wanted to prove to his Viennese colleagues that one
could by developing his talent be a first-rate psychoanalyst without necessarily having studied official psychiatry and neurology.
I have mentioned above that Freud repeatedly
presented significant thoughts to selected students. In
contrast to that, he was not pleased if one of them
insisted that he wanted to discover something on his
own. Then he would become grumpy, yes, even angry.
And to be sure, not merely if the persons completely
distanced themselves from him as did Adler and Jung,
but also when someone like Stekel tried to set himself
up as an equal to the Professor on the basis of his own
39

little discovery. Even those who worked only with

Freuds ideas and disavowed their own individuality,
were looked askance at if they so much as once changed
or added one little brick to the edifice.
In the most benign cases, where something really
new had been discovered, the Professor listened in
silence without approval. If a student, however, had
missed the mark, this attempt at unauthorized individual research could lead to a break. For Freud was not
merely the father of psychoanalysis, but also its tyrant!
This might help explain why he did not leave behind a
proper school even though so many stood on his
shoulders and put his ideas to use. Certainly it was not
easy to exist at Freuds side and even less so when he
meant well. He smothered everyone with the force and
greatness of his genius and those who stood closest to
his emanations could not keep their limbs unscathed
any more than could the first researchers of radium and
x-rays. No one could really hold ones own next to this
giant and many who were too weak to simply love him
for what he was therefore became his enemy!
Above I spoke of Freuds modesty in all scientific
things, and can add only that he always refused officially
and publicly to play the leader. He presided over the first
congress in Salzburg only after Bleuler had refused the
chairmanship offered him. Otherwise Freud always
promoted others and would always make one of his
favorites President of the International Psychoanalytic
40

Association. To all appearances, he wanted nothing

more than to be merely the chairman of a regional
group, at least in name. But in truth, all the strings were
held together in his firm hand and none of the others,
not even the international president, would have dared
to decree anything without first asking Freud. Not once
did an article appear in our journal if he was not completely in accord, or if he, at the very least, did not
indulgently allow it. Even when death had already
stretched out his hand towards him and Freud could no
longer even fulfill the duties of the chairman of the
Vienna regional group, he still remained the ruler of
all, the primal father or Father of All as he was still
called at the Berlin psychoanalytic congress.
In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
[1921], Freud sketched the face of a leadermodeled
after himself. And he was so beloved by all in the circle
of intimates and at congresses that it sparked envy
among his followers. Already during the time of Adler
and Stekel in the Vienna regional group, where the
talents of those who stood closest to the central sun
chiefly developed, there were always intense fights and
jealousies. There Freuds sadism as well as his enormous
genius would come to light full force.
In On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Freud also talks about the earliest meetings of
the small group of disciples in his house and observes
the following:
41

There were only two inauspicious circumstances which at last estranged me inwardly from
the group. I could not succeed in establishing
among its members the friendly relations that
ought to obtain between men who are all engaged upon the same difficult work; nor was I
able to stifle the disputes about priority for
which there were so many opportunities under
these conditions of work in common.
The second point seems to me to be of less importance because the decisive, most important discoveries
were made by the professor himself as everyone readily
acknowledged. On the other hand, a mutually friendly
state of understanding did not exist among us all
only I must say not entirely without blame on Sigmund Freuds part. He could very well have kept a
tight rein on the students, if he had from the beginning
of the group used his absolute authority to make crucial interventionshad he not himself, on occasion,
presented a bad example to the others. How could he
press for courteous friendliness and halt every attack
that was not purely factual if he himself blithely disregarded both rules and to be sure, did so more than
once. Understandably, since Freud could not for various weighty reasons show his displeasure to his opponents, he might on occasion let it break out against his
own followers, against students and disciples. He had
42

his moods and unpredictable temper. While his favorites were often allowed for the most part to do whatever
they pleased, a lightning bolt could suddenly come out
of the blue and seriously injure even the most loyal. If,
however, Freud let loose his sadism, then he could not
restrain the others from being parliamentary, and attacking each other.
To stay on course with the truth, it has to be said
that Freud was not free from moods, yes, one could
even say that now and then he had the mood of a hysterical woman. Then he would become completely unpredictable. I will cite just two examples. I believe it
was in the year 1908 that we members were suddenly
surprised by a notice from the secretary of the society,
Otto Rank: Freud had decided that the Society that at
that time still met at his home would be dissolved in
order that it could then be reconstituted anew. One
was supposed to declare in writing whether or not one
wished to join the new society. And what was the
meaning of this otherwise entirely incomprehensible
maneuver? As it soon turned out, what was planned
was to get rid of Dr. Kahane for as the Professor rightly
assumed, he would not make a new affiliation request.
Here it is particularly worth observing that Freud owed
great thanks to this sagacious, deserving, and highly respected colleague. Had he not stood up for the Professor at a time when it was plainly compromising for him
to repeatedly defend his manhood. But gratitude was
43

never Freuds strength. Kahanes crime was just that he

had known the great man while he was still a little secondary school student, that is to say, while still in his
tattered boots.
One day, in later years, when the Society was already meeting in its own place, Freud, all of a sudden,
without any apparent motive, resigned his chairmanship, and proposed Adler in his stead with Wilhelm
Stekel as deputy. After this interregnum had lasted for a
few months, Freud declared just as suddenly that he
was ready because of a unanimous request to again
assume the chairmanship.
To conclude, I want to mention one more significant point. It is known that when one has been a professor for too long or has even become a privy councilor, one is usually already a half idiot. Customarily
when this happens, students call a professor a senex,
that is, an old man with half a mind. But Freud, however, was never, not even in his very last years, ever disrespectfully called senex. When could anyone have
come to the conclusion that this constantly thoughtgenerating genius had become senile. Though Freud
certainly grew old and became severely damaged physically by illness and a long-lasting bodily infirmity, he
always remained, intellectually speaking, a hero who
could slay any opponent with one single tap of his paw.

44

Freud as Leader and

Organizer

Among all the innate talents that Freud exercised, his

organizational ability was not the very least. In the first
chapter, I have told how insignificant the beginnings of
this genius had been and how difficult it had been to
drum up the minimal audience of three listeners for his
lectures. If one compares that with todays International
Psychoanalytic Association with its extension from the
Netherlands to Calcutta, from Baltimore to London
and Moscow, then one can respect this progress.
If Freud witnessed his triumph over his opponents
still in his lifetime and was not misunderstood, neglected, or even locked up in an insane asylum as other
ground-breaking geniuses such as Robert Mayer [1814
1878] and Ignaz Semmelweiss [18181865] were, so he
could give thanks essentially to his gift of winning over
people and welding them together into solid units.
This was all the more necessary as he had to overcome
45

much greater difficulties than any and all other researchers. Every genius with revolutionary new ideas
must first of all conquer the masses laziness and disinclination to think. That state of affairs is a matter of
course for all geniuses. In addition, Freud also found a
specific psychoanalytic resistance.
It is amazing how strong and widespread peoples
sexual shyness is, brought to the world through Christianity. The peoples of the Orient with their age-old
culture, the classical nations of antiquity, the Greeks
and the Romans, did not know such shyness. They
were sensually joyful and natural. Only Christianity labeled woman as the vessel of sin and even the most natural act of sexual intercourse was an act that had to
hide from the light of day. Nothing is more telling than
the fact that in everyday speech the terms sexual and
immoral are frequently held to be synonymous. One
would think that the fine minds of the academy and
above all, doctors for whom nothing human should
be foreign, ought to be willing to turn away from this
mistaken path. Well, thats a fine how-do-you-do! It is
precisely the doctors who played the part of leaders of
morality and became bigots, almost worse than their
brothers from theology.
A psychiatric privy councilor tells the following nice
little story: A sick woman who appeared to suffer from
sexually-based hysteria was in a clinic and a young
medical studentah, youth is so impetuousfelt
46

compelled to remark, Mr. Privy Councilor, this would

be a case for psychoanalysis! Whereupon the privy
councilor rebuffed him contemptuously, Well now, if
you want to be involved with such filth, then you can go
ahead and do so. This, then, was the official view of the
new methodology. It was seen as obscene filth dressed
up as a science. On the other hand, one spoke also of a
second reproof, namely that psychoanalysis was a Jewish invention, and therefore reprehensible, but liberal
people did not say so openly. They just thought it and
acted accordingly.
Under these circumstances, no aspiring youth
were advised to turn towards this new theory. And yet
Freud, from year to year, always found more followers.
People were literally jostling to be a part of his circle
and above all to be among his closest students. How
can this puzzle be explained? One thing was clear: the
prospect of a career was not a decisive factor, nor in the
earlier years was it the prospect of a lucrative practice.
Other teachers held on to their students through the
hope of the benefit they would give that would allow
the students the possibility of becoming Assistants,
Docents, and Professors. Their disciples went into psychiatry, not because they felt an inner calling for this
disciplineI would just once like to see a prodigy who
felt such a callingbut rather because one could become an assistant within a half a year instead of waiting
the usual period of four to six years in the clinics of an
47

internist or surgeon. None of these considerations

applied in Freuds case. Whoever attached himself to
Freud abandoned from the outset any academic career
and indeed any good will and respect from his colleagues. Such a student would find himself persecuted
by the clinic, seen as a charlatan by doctors, and with a
psychoanalytic practice progressing poorly if at all.
There must have been a stronger magnetism at work to
generate such pure idealism and to give up the fleshpots
of Egypt and any monetary or substantial advantage.
This wonderful attraction was the result of the enormous richness of deep thoughts that Freud gave away
weekly to his students in addition to what he made accessible in writings and lectures. Thus, above all, it was
knowledge-starved youth that streamed towards the
master, for no other clinical instructor could rival these
treasures. And with him, they found what they could
hear at no other clinic, from no other lectern, clearly
intelligible, profoundly perceptive, in a word, depthpsychology. In the face of depth-psychology, everything
that had heretofore been so-called psychiatry shriveled
up. Finally young doctors and neurologists had something at hand that they had up to then searched for entirely in vain: the means of actually curing the so terribly
widespread psychoneuroses.
But all this does not, however, explain how Freud
could prevail in his lifetime, prevail against the resistance of clinical monopolies and the medical majority.
48

At best, his genius would have been sufficient to have

had his statue placed in the great hall of the university
after his death, when he had become harmless. How
did he manage to live to see himself famouseven if
without a statue?
Once again, his great intelligence and his ability to
organize helped him. He did not limit himself to Austria and Germany or even to Vienna which was so hostile to him. If a prophet is nothing in his own country,
then it was even more so for a revolutionary with such
ideas as Freud. Thus he thought of foreign countries
from the beginning: Flectere, si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo stands at the top of one of his first
works [If I cant change the gods, I will move Acheron
(river of Hades), Virgils Aeneid, Book 7, chosen by
Freud as the title page epigraph for The Interpretation of
Dreams]. Chance came to the aid of the afflicted. In
Zurich, after [Auguste] Forels [18481931] departure, a
newer, fresher spirit arose and Eugen Bleuler was the
first clinician to verify the Freudian mechanism at his
institute. From that soon grew personal relationships
leading to the psychoanalytic congresses, the Schriften
zur angewandten Seelenkunde, the founding of the
Jahrbcher [yearbooks], as well as finally to the momentous lectures of Freud and Jung in America. Now
psychoanalysis spread even further going with Jones to
Canada and England, with Ferenczi to Hungary, and
found enthusiastic supporters in France, Holland, and
49

Sweden, and in the end finally forced even the reluctant German clinics to consider it.
As the number of members of individual regional
groups increased from year to year, this led to founding
of two journals (Zentralblatt fr Psychoanalyse, later
continued as the Internationale Zeitschrift fr rztliche
Psychoanalyse as well as Imago) and finally the Internationaler psychoanalytischer Verlag led to ever new
problems for the young discipline to consider. Today,
one can certainly say that there is no area in human
culture that has not been illuminated and stimulated
by our method, even more than Darwinism did during
its heyday.
All strings, nevertheless, eventually came together
in the hand of the master who alone knew how to organize everything, even when he was physically a broken
man. Only those who knew Freud in his brightest
period could appreciate the organizational energy that
came out of his head. How he could understand someone after hearing only half a thought, how to handle
each person on his own terms, how he knew how to get
to the kernel of each problem in no time, and how he
was able to articulate something decisive in one sentence. I remember, for example, a little talk that Jones
gave as a guest as a contribution to our discussions.
Since half of the Societys members understood no English, one of the expertswho was also a sharp-witted
lawyerwas entrusted with the task of translating
50

Jones words for the others. He tried, painstakingly

enough, to adhere to the sentences and expressions of
the speaker, translating them literally or providing
superfluous elements, in any event, not exactly succeeding. Then finally the Professors patience ran out,
and with one angry But no, my dear colleague! Jones
meant to say such and such, he was able to explain in
one single pithy sentence what neither the guest nor his
translator were able to get across to the audience.
If a disciple arranged his thoughts such that an
angel of the Lord couldnt fathom them and he presented undigested material to the master, the latter,
often with a single word, would remove any uncertainty, and bring the partial thought to completion,
thereby suddenly elevating the student so that at once
he stood amazed to see how smart he had been. What a
deep knowledge of humanity Freud always demonstrated when he wanted to win over a new follower!
How fascinating he could be, just like another charmer
and awful sadist, namely, Otto von Bismarck [1815
1898]! I recall a lecture somewhere around the year
1910. Once again, a psychoanalytic infant had discovered the Oedipus Complex on his own and hastened to
present this information with the light of understanding shining in his eyes. Another teacher in Freuds place
might have said something like, Dear sir, I have
known about that for fifteen years and it already appears in my Interpretation of Dreams. But instead
51

Freud kindly exclaimed, Very remarkable! Really very

remarkable! thereby winning over the student for life.
Another student once came to the Professor with the
declaration that he wanted to practice psychoanalysis
in order to help mankind and he received, to his
amazement, the answer: You want to help? Then you
are a truly bad sadist! The Professor had quickly realized that only a person who had repressed his own sadism would feel compelled in later years to want to help.
And perhaps this is something he had learned from his
own personal experience.
Speaking of the knowledge of humanity, I have
never met anyone who could see through people as
quickly and fully as Sigmund Freud. A younger colleague had asked the Professor for a consultation about
a morphine addict who demanded an injection of an
unbelievably high dose. When both doctors withdrew
to confer, Freud declared, My dear colleague, the wife
is a hussy! There is nothing to be done! But Professor,
the young doctor protested, The wife looks after her
husband day and night. I have observed this for weeks
and weeks. The wife is a hussy. So the consultation
remained without result and the patient remained in the
same condition. Six months later, the gem of a wife ran
away from her husband with another man and eight
days thereafter the morphine addict was cured.
When Bleuler began corresponding years ago with
Freud, still unknown to him personally, there was a
52

characteristic of the Zurich psychiatrist that surprised

Freud very much. Freud knew very soon and very precisely what each person was about and if he sometimes
occasionally made a mistake in the assessment of his
surroundings, there were other factors at play: albeit his
hatred of the academy and the environment of increasing self-confidence which greedily drank up the scanty
praise. So it could happen from time to time, that even
nonentities were allowed a certain influence though
this for the most part did not last long and besides was
always regulated by Freud.
Freud was truly a born leader and in his discipline,
probably the only one. This was clearest when, because
of illness, he had to turn over the personal leadership of
the Viennese chapter to a vice president. Since he held
the meetings of the executive board in his home from
which the decisive directives came, it appeared that
superficially little had changed. The current Vice
would occupy the chair at the head of the room and
with more or less grace give the floor to the speakers,
instruct or scold the followers, and sometimes display
the yearnings of dictatorship. In short, he would act as
though he were actually the president. Only if it were a
matter of settling a dispute with one sentence, or in
clarifying a controversial question with the help of considerable experience or innate genius, then the dictator
usually failed miserably. It was considered a godsend if
he did not exacerbate the existing confusion.
53

One can boldly claim that the essential excitement

of the psychoanalytic movement stemmed entirely
from Freud himself. I will say nothing of the beginnings and the early years when all the foundations first
had to be created by him. But also during the later
times, beginning somewhere around 1914, there was
not one great idea that did not directly or indirectly
originate from Freud. I would mention narcissism as
the most important and later the whole idea of egopsychology stemming from unconscious guilt feelings,
his last truly great discovery, to the death instinct, and
the relationship between ego and id. Where Freud
could not be directly influential as in the Viennese
Psychoanalytic Society, he could often decisively influence the thoughts of the recipients of his longer letters.
And when I read an essay that claimed to be composed
in response to an oral or written stimulus of the Professor, I knew in an instant without a doubt whose brainchild lay before me. Through the force of his ideas,
Freud had the leadership of the regional groups in his
hands so that they most willingly modeled their views
after his. How did Bismarck once put it: My ambassadors must line up at attention upon command just like
non-commissioned officers. Even among the psychoanalytic sergeants, I know of not one that did not do
so. And not one dared to make a decision of importance on his own without Freuds consent or at the very
least his indulgence. And here again the similarity to
Bismarck catches the eye.
54

I have already mentioned that Freud was not pleased

when a student went his own way or followed up his
own thoughts independently. If such an event occurred,
then an unspoken objection within him held sway:
There should be no other person except me to seek and
find something new. The sad experiences Freud had
with Jung and Adler explain a lot, if not everything.
Freud was not free of envy of his most talented disciples,
if they even once found something new. He, abounding
in insights, upon whose shoulders everyone admittedly
stood, had the very least to fear from fellow workers.
Perhaps another person would have publicly promoted
his disciples. But Freud, however, was rightly aware that
he was still the best one to hold the strings of his science
and wanted to remain alone in control, if not always in
name, then forever in reality. Here his facility for organization killed his future school at its root. When Freud
departs from this earth, he leaves behind, to be sure, disciples who continue to grow further, but no one to continue his teaching.
Two factors in particular often gravely impaired
Freuds profound understanding of humanity, his unerring judgment, and therewith the fruits of his organizational talents: his strong narcissism that required
loudly articulated admiration and a perpetual need for
favorite students. Now frankincense, as is well known,
is the most deadly poison, but that cant be held against
it. And that Freud who was earlier so terribly misjudged that he longed for well-deserved praise cannot
55

be held against him either. It was not enough for him

for praise to be given; it rather had to be constant and
loudly stated. Whoever expressed his admiration only
occasionally or betrayed it merely through their actions
were continually in danger of falling out of grace.
Freud sometimes reminded me of a man celebrating a
jubilee who was at a banquet in his honor. When the
master of ceremonies said, It might be very embarrassing for the honored guest to be praised and admired
this much that he would become dizzy, the latter responded this: Oh, you have no idea how much praise
I can endure! If one grabbed hold of Freud through
his narcissism, it would be possible, at least for very
short time, to have him for oneself. But whoever
was not able to flatter himFreud called it telling
kindnesseshad failed from the very start.
The topic of favorite students deserves its own
chapter. Freud always needed one such on whom he
could heap all honors, whether he was named Alfred
Adler or C. G. Jung or Otto Rank. I can be most precise about the case of Adler. I am not quite sure what
it was about this one that Freud so especially liked
certainly not his psychoanalytic knowledge or competence. When Jung visited Vienna for the first time and
attended a meeting of our Society [March 7, 1907], Alfred Adler was chosen as the show-horse so to speak to
parade in front of him. He had chosen as a topic a case
of compulsive neurosis which he used as proof of the
56

inferiority of sexual organs, masculine protest and

the like. In the discussion that followed, I immediately
declared that Adlers presentation had been anything
but psychoanalytic. But at that time Freud was not yet
ready to accept the truth and for a long time he held
fast to the illusion that Adler was a psychoanalyst.
And this was typical. So long as the master was infatuated with a student, he not only remained blind to
the students shortcomings, but he also forced everyone
to see the student with the same blindness. It was only
many years later when he had fully broken with the favorite that he spontaneously declared that Alfred Adler
had never understood psychoanalysis or practiced it.
Meanwhile, however, Adler took advantage of the
favor of the Professor to increase his own personal following in the Society. More and more, most of those
accepted were non-doctors but were, however, [Communist] Party members and what was even worse, they
spoke only their own specific Adlerian jargon and did
not act as if they were members of the Psychoanalytic
Society. And they spoke and acted as though they were
hosts of the house and that there was only one master:
Alfred Adler. They merely bandied his catch phrases
around and a stranger would never have suspected that
Freuds teachings were being promulgated. The bubble
burst when Adler finally founded a second competing
society for himself and his friends but without giving
up membership in the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society.
57

A motion, clearly with Freuds consent, was made

and adopted that declared such ambivalence unacceptable. Adler and his group resigned and founded a
Society for Free Psychoanalysis thus a lucus a non lucendo [a grove from not being full of light], a psychoanalysis that was devoid of Freud. Only later when the
society was more honestly re-named as the Society for
Individual Psychology could nothing be said against it
any longer. According to a joke of one of our colleagues,
everyone was free to also become a member of an animal
protection society. But how important Adler and his
students still find the popular term psychoanalysis
today may be illuminated by the fact that when short
advertisements about Adlers successes in France and
America appear in the newspapers, the designation the
psychoanalyst Adler was always used.
Also in the case of Jung did Freud wait until the last
minute to cut the cord between himself and his favorite. It speaks not less for the truth of psychoanalysis and
for the organizational talent of its discoverer that after
the break had been completed, nearly all the students
in both hemispheres joined Freud and not Jung. Even
those whom Jung had personally introduced to psychoanalysis such as parson [Oskar] Pfister [18731956]
remained true to the old flag. Also the Swiss regional
group held firm to the Freudian tradition, to say nothing of all the rest.

58

Freud and the Clinic

Motto:
Fortunate is the man who feels foreign greatness
And who makes it his own through love.
For to be great is granted to few,
And he who closes his heart to foreign appreciation,
Lives alone in a desolate self,
A sufferercertainly a common one.
Grillparzer

Seldom is a scientific genius so often played false as was

Sigmund Freud. At a banquet in his honor, years ago, I
made the following speech: If a new doctrine arises in
medicine which is not begotten by a clinician, it will
run through three stages, assuming that it will ultimately prevail. In the first phase, the most dangerous
one, the new discipline is hushed up. In the second, it
is reviled. If it nevertheless persists despite all the hostility, then one day a learned scholar will reveal that in essence the study says nothing new, but on the contrary
59

that Hippocrates, who, as we know, knew everything,

at the very least, already anticipated this study. Freuds
discoveries were as good as silenced for at least a decade. They are now still in the phase of being reviled.
But I personally hope to live to see them discussed so
naturally as if they were already known to the Greeks
and Romans.
What I said in the year 1903 has since then almost become a reality. Among clinical psychiatrists,
only a single one, Eugen Bleuler, found the courage for
a period of time to openly speak in favor of Freud and
his teachings and yeshorribile dictueven say so in
print. Two years later, he, the discoverer of ambivalence found his way back, to be sure, to mainstream
psychiatry and explained at the congress in Breslau in
his Critique of Freudian Theory (Allgemeine Zeitschrift fr Psychiatrie, vol. 70, p. 665): My earlier discussion predominantly emphasized the positive. This
present work provides a supplement to it and must
naturally stress more strongly the negative. This happened despite the fact that as an honest man, he had
confessed that he had no basis for modifying even in
the smallest detail anything he had assumed two years
earlier. How did Schmock put it in [Gustav] Freytags
Die Journalisten? I have written left and right; I can
write in any direction. Nowadays, he would have
doubtless maintained that he was simply being ambivalent. Also Bleulers student, C. G. Jung, to whom I
60

will return later, went down a similar path. In modern

times academic psychiatry has begun to absorb Freuds
teachings, not officially but at the perineal lymph tract.
It was readily accepted at home, but not yet under the
linden trees.
In general, a person in the clinic is resistant to new
teachings unless they are revealed by a supreme deity
himself or a scholar well versed in those new teachings.
Usually, the ones in authority are frightened of the
homo novus: He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous [Shakespeares Julius Caesar, I, ii]. Thus anyone
seeking an academic career is strongly advised: Watch
out for too much intellect and talent! And to complete that thought: whoever has genius at his disposal
must conceal it with great care as it is something that
the reigning privy councilor himself does not usually
possess. And where would university activities end up if
only proclaimed geniuses were hired, especially those
who did not have eighteen Christian ancestors on both
the fathers and mothers side?
Freud flouted these principles of academic hierarchy, in the most grievous way. Once years ago when
there had been a particularly malicious attack on him, I
responded with: You are operating on the basis of a
false assumption. Freud is not a professor, Freud is a
genius! One can make a professor out of any halfway
intelligent man who works for a couple of years in a
clinic. And when he completes his baptism, he cannot
61

fail to attain a position and honor. On the other hand,

one is born a genius and, to be sure, the birth of such
doesnt occur all that often. One can become a professor, but one must be a genius!
Let us take as an example the case of Freud. When
he began, he still conducted himself in a manner halfway scientific and quite conformist. He even received
his docentship for a kind of school exercise. Then he
committed the incredible folly of discovering a whole
series of groundbreaking things.
And if that wasnt enough, he did not slack off,
creating something new and unheard of, year after
year. Here is not the place to recap all of his scientific
achievements. But to name only a few: Freud has led us
to an understanding of the nature of psychoneuroses
and last not least [original in English] also taught
us how to cure them; he stimulated psychiatry in extraordinary ways, a field that was not even his own; he
showed for the first time the mechanism of dementia
praecox, paranoia and paranoid conditions, melancholy, mania, and cyclic mental illness; he created a
new psychology: the study of the repressed unconscious and thereby inspiring, indeed, in many ways decisively the operation of countless human sciences; he
was the first to really research and fully interpret
dreamsand all this without really being officially authorized to do so. How could such an intelligent man
have acted in such an extremely irresponsible way!
62

Now, however, we can see Freuds fundamental

error. All his life, he had nurtured the hope that he
could win over the clinic, thereby forgetting that for
people of his sort this was quite impossible. Democritus once said that ever since Pythagoras offered a hundred oxen to the gods after discovering his famous
theorem, all oxen tremble whenever a new discovery is
made. And now along came a genius who discovered
new truths year after year. Must not all the not-so-great
talents feel terribly distressed in their need to justify
their existence? Where would one be if every single
genius that ran by was permitted to boldly overturn
everything one had so painstakingly learned with ones
backside on school benches!
So let this be a warning for every aspiring student:
The clinic does not allow itself to be conquered; one
must be born into the clinic! A malicious mind once asserted, In the medical faculty, genius is inherited from
father to son; in the philosophy department from privy
councilor to the son-in-law. That is stated so generally
that it is, naturally, not true. Everyday experience does
teach us that there are also sons-in-law on the medical
faculty, as well as more distant brothers-in-law and
other relatives with hereditary talent. One can objectively say only this: The paths along which genius is
inherited remain shrouded at this time. Nevertheless
one thing is clear todaythey are excluded from the
limited circles of professors.
63

Now to return again to our case. Why wasnt

Freud the son of a privy councilor? Why did he not
stem from an old Austrian and self-respecting Aryan
office-holding family? Why didnt he at the very least
marry into a professorship as a son-in-law? How easily
and effortlessly, without any expenditure of overflowing talent, could he have then accomplished his ascent!
Instead of this beginning, he had the lack of foresight
to come into the world as a Jew and in the bargain,
bringing with him yet so much genius that a whole
faculty could easily have been endowed with it.
And then he put a crown on his eccentricity and
began to concern himself with sexuality which was as
un-Christian as it was unscientific. Does then, in general, something like a sexual instinct exist? I mean naturally by that not the so-called respectable variety
which is indispensable for the propagation of the
human race, notand here my pen is ready to resist
the reproductive drive whose results indeed also nourish church and state, but rather, pure and simple, the
sex drive, its consequences and symptoms. And then
Freud uncovered the fact that psychoneuroses without
exception are invariably based upon repressed sexual
impulses, and that such sexual factors play an enormous role in mental illnesses. That must have been the
last straw! How was it that another Jewish genius,
Heinrich Heine [17971856], once gibed:

64

Love must be Platonic,

Said the scrawny privy councilor.
And there is nothing more chaste known on earth,
nothing more morally perfect than a privy councilor
of psychiatry. One can understand the fate that Freud
of necessity had to encounter when he addressed the
Viennese Neurological Society for the first time with
his doctrine. A airless space was formed around him, he
who had so boldly dared to shake the world out of its
sleep. And werent the psychiatrists exactly right when
they branded such views as Jewish-sexual nonsense?
It is not hard to imagine the further fate of the genius. Freud stood completely alone for ten years, if one
disregards the small community of students that began
to gradually gather around him. His writings were simply hushed up by the technical press or at best were once
condescendingly and scornfully dismissed by the pinnacle of academic knowledge. Dear God, a private docent with new ideas! For a very long time, the most sure
and suitable path to a professorship was to write a book
against Freud and his teachings, even if one no longer
knew what these teachings were about. Why even go to
the trouble of seeking out the lion in his den? One had
indeed heard enough deprecatory remarks about Freud
in the technical literature and from big names. A conscientious student might perhaps leaf through a little bit

65

of Freuds oldest writing, the Studies on the Theory

of Hysteria [1895] by Breuer and Freud, although this
had already long been characterized as totally obsolete
by the master himself. If such a modern Don Quixote
came running to attack an abandoned fortress armed
with his entire schoolroom knowledge, then he would
feel himself far superior to Freud and all analysts.
Meanwhile the fame of the master extended to ever
wider circles, becoming more international day by day
and finally could no longer be overlooked. After the
Great War, Vienna became all the more a Mecca for
foreign doctors and one made a pilgrimage to Freud as
one had once gone to Weimar for Goethe. Freud became the most popular man in England and America,
notwithstanding King George, Lloyd George, and the
respective president of the United States. And when
such an American doctor set foot on Viennese soil, his
first question was: Where is Freuds clinic? That
something like a Wagner clinic existed was not something that he from the other side of the big fishpond
had ever even heard of. Something serious, very serious
for the medical school to ponder!
But the Lord does not abandon His own and suddenly a miracle occurred. Certainly not the kind of
miracle that one can read about in sacred books and
books of legends, but a miracle nonetheless. Since
time immemorial there had been two chairs for psychiatry in Vienna, as there had been for surgery and
66

internal medicine. But one daythe miracle had

not announced itself through any sort of signs, the
animals had not become restless and the sun had not
darkenedonly suddenly the second chair entirely disappeared from the surface of the earth. If you please,
this is no fairytale, but an actual and true miracle,
happening in the twentieth century after the birth of
Christ. That by this means a monopoly was created for
the first psychiatric clinic, its executive board was free
from any possible disagreeable rivalry with a towering
genius, openings became available for the appointment
of assistants, docents and professors, as well as detaching positions from neurologyall this was certainly an
unexpected but not to be undervalued consequence of
the miracle.
Even more, this miracle made it possible to be generous to Freud. One does not finally want to stand in
front of the afterworld as a kind of Beckmesser [Sixtus
Beckmesser, the town clerk in Richard Wagners Die
Meistersinger, foil to the hero Walther von Stolzing]
who has suppressed genius with all ones might and
main. Accordingly, it was decided to confer upon
Freud in addition to his previous private docentship
the title of a regular Austrian University Professor. But
note well, only the title, of course. And so one was surprised to read in the official Viennese newspaper that
the federal president had named private docent Dr.
Sigmund Freud as a regular university professor. Was
67

this not a sign of clinical generosity and moreover it was

also so harmless! The state didnt pay private docents a
cent and the mere title did not entitle one to the leadership of a clinic, a true teaching forum. So everything
was thus in perfect order. The Austrian Republic didnt
have to go to any expense, the privy councilor retained
his monopoly, and the genius received an empty title.
(Freuds seventieth birthday was celebrated all over the
worldwith the exception of the Austrian Ministry of
Education and the University of Vienna. Despite this
slight, the Viennese socialist city council named him a
citizenthough not an honorary citizena distinction that was at the same time also given to an Assistant
Chairman, a choir master, and a lawyer who had similarly just turned seventy years old. One can see that the
city to whose fame he had so enormously contributed
knew how to honor its great son.)
Nor is this fate entirely novel. When [Franz] Grillparzer [17911872] retired as director of the archives
after twenty-four years of service, he received in addition to his not very substantial pension the title of privy
councilor. At that time, this grouch of a poet wrote the
following epigram:
The titles of my works
I have been fairly paid for;
The title after title given me
Have no financial value!
68

Quite frankly, this analogy is not perfect. Freuds

nomination to be an Austrian privy councilor is missing. Thus our genius was spared this worst degradation, this last and truly Austrian disgrace!
Yet the generosity of the clinic was not depleted by
its first accommodation. It allowedone imagines
two clinical assistants of psychiatry to join the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society, not to learn anything
about psychoanalysismy God why would a clinical
assistant need to know that at allbut rather, indeed,
how should I paraphrase it? Briefly, they became members of the Society, and one of them later even gave lectures on psychoanalysisevidently at the clinic.
A fine chess move, truly worthy of the cleverness of
the Vatican! After one could no longer very well really
ignore psychoanalysis, attempts were made to downgrade it to the ranks of a mere auxiliary science or a
method of healing, something like lumbar puncture or
hypnosis. Thus it became possible to demonstrate that
in the clinic, one could learn not only psychoanalysis
but, in addition, other psychotherapeutic methods, including all of neurology and psychiatry! How much
higher before long did the all-encompassing clinic stand
in comparison with the shabby Psychoanalytic Society
with its small, limited field of activity! It was studiously
overlooked, so as not to make ones opponent seem even
larger, that psychoanalysis is no propaedeutic auxiliary
science like percussion and auscultation that one can
69

quickly learn on the side in a course but is rather an explanatory and healing technique, the principal part of a
neurological practice to treat all psychoneuroses. Nor
would they let it appear that in theory it was a means of
rejuvenating arteriosclerotic and calcified psychiatry.
This activity reminds me of the well known humorous
quip of Maier. He once bragged: All poets are full of
praise and glory in extolling the splendor of May. How
beautiful and magnificent must then a May-er be! If
psychoanalysis is already so great, then so much more so
is the clinic which reigns over not only psychoanalysis
surely a lucus a non lucendobut also everything else.
After finishing with Jupiter, it is fitting to say a word
about the gods of the minor clans. A second psychoanalytic society had formed in ViennaI am not referring to that of Adler-Platte or that of Stekelled by an
extraordinary professor and former assistant in psychiatry. This society sought to approach and be in contact
with the Freudian circle and was naturally very furious
when the lovingly offered hand was not grasped enthusiastically. Of course, the founders themselves and even
more so their supporters had for years made fun of
Freud. Now, however, they were generously ready to
forget all the wrongs they had very likely committed
and were ready to sit down together with those they
had called names and smoke a peace-pipe. Yet how
narrow-minded were once again the psychoanalysts
who did not want anything to do with the proffered
70

friendship! Did they not know the words of [Johann]

Nestroy [18011862], It is so noble to place ones hand
in the hand of another which should have rightly been
placed in his face?
The Swiss were a whole other sort! How Bleuler
without new data gradually retreated from admiring
Freud back to mainstream psychiatry, I have already
spoken of above. Yet more drastic was Transformations
and Symbolisms of the Libido [1912] by C. G. Jung, his
student and assistant. In his noble Siegfried role, which
would certainly be a splendid leading part in any Nibelungen movie, he was the enfant gt [spoiled brat] of
psychoanalysis, the absolute darling of gods and men.
Freud was ready to attribute to him all possible great
qualities without verification and unhesitatingly chose
to make him president of the International Psychoanalytic Society and hoped through him to be able to conquer the clinic. But he had not reckoned with Jungs
Christian inheritance.
As the son of a pastor, Jung had been infected with
Aryan blood from his family. Deep in his heart, he was
anything but a philosemite. Now, however, he encountered Judaism in its most highly gifted embodiment and
Jewish knowledge shining in front of him. Was it any
wonder that he began by being blinded with the feeling
that never before had he stood before the countenance
of a greater genius? But his lineage was not to be denied.
One day he sat down and carried out scholarly studies
71

for months which resulted in his finding his way back

through the Mithra cult to primeval Christianity. In
practical terms, this may be seen that as a Christian
prophet, he fully stripped the libido of its sexual character and reduced it to merely spiritual energy. This
was, so to speak, the decontamination of the poisonous
Freudian teachings through Christianization and total
cleansing. But since the master could not easily go
along with this desexualization of his teachings which
went to the original foundation of his theories, he saw
with a heavy heart that he needed to cut the cord
between him and the clinic.
In order for us to summarize all that has been said
up to now, I must say again: it is still rare that so much
perfidy and mean-spiritedness has been directed, sometimes entirely in the open but even more often covertly
and maliciously, against Freud, a one-of-a-kind creative
genius, a veritable plant of the century. That he was
able to succeed in spite of this and, to be sure, still in
his lifetime, he can thank, in addition to his scientific
achievements, and especially his eminent intelligence,
the fact that he turned to foreign countries at just the
right time. This then finally forced his fatherland to
grant him some recognition even if given reluctantly.

72

Freud at the Psychoanalytic

Congresses

Freuds portrait would be incomplete if one did not

take into consideration the role which he was called
upon to play at the psychoanalytic congresses. I would
like to highlight four of these which remain especially
vivid in my memory: the first in Salzburg; the two contentious congresses in Nuremberg and Munich, and finally the last that the Professor still attended in person,
the one in Berlin in the year 1922.
For every participant the first gathering in Salzburg
was unforgettable, not just because the entire core
group, the whole general staff of psychoanalysis, was
gathered at that time in one place. Together with all the
Viennese students were the clinicians Jung, Bleuler and
Otto Gross [18771920], plus from afar Abraham and
Ferenczi, Jones and [Abraham] Brill [18741948]. But
the greatest impression was made by the content of the
scientific lectures. There werent many of these and
they were all given in one single morning. Yet at no
73

other congress have I heard so many substantial talks.

Not a single one was hollow and worthless, meaningless or mere chatter; most of them, however, stood out
because of a special vision. And most memorable of all
was the Professors own talk about compulsive neurosis.
Before the congress, Freud had asked his Vienna
guard not to bother him before he spoke. And with
good reason, as his main concern was today to touch
the kings stone heart, in other words, to win over the
Swiss and above all the ambivalent Bleuler. And then
the Professor spoke initially for the short half hour that
had been allotted as speaking time for all the participants. Thereupon he interrupted himself with a question to the full audience whether in the light of what he
still had to say, could he continue to speak? And when
his request was granted with jubilation, he spoke for
another hour and fifteen minutes, thus for a total of
one and three-quarters hours as he was accustomed to
doing in his Saturday lectures. And how he lectured! I
can still clearly see today how the Swiss became wideeyed. This was not the ordinary professorial lecture
that in essence repeated what others had said and that
was, in any case, readily available in textbooks. Here
they began to experience all the magic of Freudian eloquence. This time the Professor had carefully brought
the sea of faces to his point of view. At another place,
as I have already mentioned, when he had held forth
on the same theme to the Viennese Society with a
74

superabundance of new and overpowering thoughts, it

almost suffocated the audience. But in Salzburg, everything was measuredly concentrated and organized, his
many discoveries reduced to the lowest common denominator of understanding among his disciples, and
yet his remarks were always full of thought, even down
to the auxiliary verbs. Everyone felt that just at that
moment a genius had revealed himself and when it was
over, all hands clapped in spontaneous applause. Under
the influence of this, even Bleuler himself did not take
long to use the expressive turn of phrase: The master
of us all, Professor Freud.
And then came the time of the fervent love for
C. G. Jung. At the second congress which took place
in Nuremberg, the Viennese experienced a frightful
surprise. Without first informing anyone, Freud had
agreed with Ferenczi upon a proposal that, if it were accepted, would have put all the power in the hands of
the Swiss. The leadership of the movement should then
move from Vienna to Zurich, where the locus of editorial control of all general analytic articles would be established, and finally it was proposed that Jung become
the permanent president. This was a full-fledged dispossession and neglect of the Vienna school in favor of
Jungat that time there wasnt even a Swiss regional
groupwho was to be the convenient recipient of the
entire future of Freuds teachings in spite of his thus far
meager experience in psychoanalysis.
75

In On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Freud explained the motivation for this step as
follows:
I judged that the new movements association
with Vienna was no recommendation but rather
a handicap to it. A place in the heart of Europe
like Zurich, where an academic teacher had
opened the doors of his institution to psychoanalysis, seemed to me much more promising. I
also took it that a second handicap lay in my
own person, opinion about which was too much
confused by the liking or hatred of the different
sides. I wished therefore to withdraw into the
background both myself and the city where
psychoanalysis first saw the light. Moreover, I
was no longer young; I saw that there was a long
road ahead, and I felt oppressed by the thought
that the duty of being a leader should fall to me
so late in life. Yet I felt that there must be someone at the head. I knew only too well the pitfalls
that lay in wait for anyone who became engaged
in analysis, and hoped that many of them might
be avoided if an authority could be set up who
would be prepared to instruct and admonish.
This position had at first been occupied by myself, owing to my fifteen years start in experience
which nothing could counterbalance. I felt the
76

need of transferring this authority to a younger

man, who would then as a matter of course take
my place after my death. This man could only
be C. G. Jung, since Bleuler was my contemporary in age; in favor of Jung were his exceptional
talents, the contributions he had already made
to psychoanalysis, his independent position and
the impression of assured energy which his personality conveyed. In addition to this, he seemed
ready to enter into a friendly relationship with
me and for my sake to give up certain racial
prejudices which he had previously permitted
himself. I had no inkling at that time that in
spite of all these advantages the choice was a
most unfortunate one, that I had lighted upon a
person who was incapable of tolerating the authority of another, but who was still less capable of wielding it himself, and whose energies
were relentlessly devoted to the furtherance of
his own interests. [emphasis added by Sadger]
The reasons which the Professor here alleges are in
no way the only possible ones and in part are simply
post-hoc rationalizations. One will be able to see this
when I relate the further fate of the Freud-Ferenczi
proposal. After this had taken place, there was a tremendous uproar among the Viennese, a veritable palace
revolution, such that Freud could hardly have expected
77

or feared. Feelings varied with individuals, and were at

first embittered rage, then offended ambition, finally
passionate rebellion that roared through everyone, leading to strong opposition to the proposal. The Vienna
group was not only the largest in number but altogether
the single most comprehensive one. It seemed impossible to outvote them if they remained unified.
In vain, Freud tried to persuade us: They are all ten
years ahead of us in terms of practical experience (this
was the bonbon in order to win us over, given with the
pretense of being reluctantly acknowledged). So long as
psychoanalysis has its center in Vienna, it will always be
considered a Jewish science and will never be able to
conquer the clinic. But the Viennese stood firm. So
Freud had to back down taking all considerations into
account. What he summarized in On the History of
the Psychoanalytic Movement, is not correct:
Finally the Viennese gave in, after having succeeded in insisting that not Zurich, but the place
of the residence of the President should be the
center of the Association, and that he should be
elected for two years.
Had Freud wanted to propose nothing other than he
wished to choose Jung to be president for two years,
then there would have been no resistance at all. It was
only the presidency for life, his permanent right to exercise censorship, and the longtime duration of the
78

removal of the leadership to Zurich that had stirred up

the storm of indignation. On all these points, it was
Freud who had given in, not the Viennese. (Freuds
description of the events at the Nuremberg congress is
just as biased as that of Stekel.) How this resistance had
saved Freuds teachings from great harm would be
proven after a couple of years.
The reasons that induced Freud to take these actions lay far deeper than he might have liked to admit.
Already before the Nuremberg congress he had become
quite ill-tempered in front of the Viennese students because of the excess of talent that they had accumulated
among them. He once spoke of it directly: With the
talent that is concentrated in Vienna one could establish a dozen regional groups. And it is furthermore not surprising that students would often provoke
one another, especially since the master occasionally
presented a model with his hussar attacks. Instead of
gently intervening, which would certainly have been
very possible given his authority, Freud, shortly before
Nuremberg, in a fit of pique, renounced the presidency
and installed Adler and Stekel as vice-presidents. With
Jung, whom he loved, he hoped to have an easier time.
For the Bismarck of psychoanalysis was more concerned with real power than with semblance of same.
Finally, he tried to convince himself at that time that if
psychoanalysis could only be Christianized, then its
Jewish origin could surely be forgiven.
79

But how very much mistaken Freud had been about

Jung in his ability to renounce racial prejudice, as
with his compliance with the master. It became ever
more clear as Jung openly proceeded with his own libido theory and as he sought to eliminate Jewish sexuality from the study of neuroses. Freud, who had long
been very reluctant to recognize his favorite students
desertion, was finally compelled to cut the cord between himself and Jung so as not to permanently endanger the future of psychoanalysis. At the Munich
congress, he finally resolved to pronounce the liberating words of separation: That is your teaching, and no
longer my teaching! Almost all the regional groups
went with the master, only a very few Swiss remained
with Jung. And psychoanalysis cannot thank them in
truth for any new blossoms. The results teach us how
fruitless the Jungian modifications have proven to be
during the time when psychoanalytic research under
Freuds leadership has continued its triumphal course.
There is yet one additional congress that I shall
briefly mentionthe meeting in Berlin in September
of 1922since it was the last time that Freud spoke in a
circle of all his own. The lectern had been placed for
him opposite an armchair, in order to outwardly document that he was in a class by himself. Sitting in this
armchair, he tirelessly listened to three days worth of
not always very exciting lectures. For a sixty-six year old
who, as would soon become obvious, was no longer in
80

good health, it was, speaking purely physically, an

astonishing feat. It was frequently noted that Freud,
who was not allowed to smoke in this place, while listening, always had his finger playing around in his
mouth, thus again going back to the oral erotic stage of
an infant. And the great do not fear to show their
needs. I have sketched in the second chapter how
Freud in his own lecture on the conscious and unconscious enchanted his listeners, and above all, throwing
the idea of unconscious feelings of guilt out into the
crowd. This was his swan song; for many of his
younger students this was their only memory of the
great man and his art of lecturing.

81

Freuds Wit

One side of Freuds character, hardly known to the outside world, and mostly manifested only within a narrow
circle, has therefore naturally been little appreciated.
Yet it still appears to me to be important enough to devote an entire chapter to it. I am referring to his wittiness which only on occasion rose to the level of liberating humor. Not without reason is one of his earliest
works called Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious
[1905], using the term Wit not Humor. A sense of
joy and good humor, the basis for the last, were much
less present in this genius than the always sadistically
tinged irony, a lightning-like satirical illumination, and
even a deadly jibe. As far back as I can remember, I
never heard him give a hearty, liberating, resounding
laugh. At best, if a joke was suddenly right to the point,
for an instant a laugh would break out, something like a
cough, or Freud would distort the corner of his mouth
into a scornful smirk. Perhaps this was where the
countless bitter disappointments he as a great scientific
82

revolutionary encountered were worked out. And

with the passing years, these disappointments became
all the more burdensome as his genius appeared more
and more threatening to those in power. He repressed
everything that he did not tell his enemies to their face
in spite of the fact that he was perfectly capable of
doing so and then put the deadly displaced emotions
into his laughter making his wit sharply pointed, now
and then, even having the taste of bitter gall. It seems
significant to me that his favorite humorists to whom
he returned again and again were Wilhelm Busch
[18321908] and Nestroy, not, for example, Fritz Reuter
[18101874] and Otto Ernst [Schmidt, 18621926].
I will try to reconstruct from my memory a couple
of examples of this kind of wit. The Viennese Psychoanalytic Society had admitted a new member, a doctor
of medicine and philosophy. He possessed the prized
trait of being able to publish books effortlessly. In conversation, he demonstrated an often brilliant dialectic
and since he did not understand all that much of psychoanalysis, he compensated for this lack through narrative eloquence. When Freud was told of a lecture
on psychoanalysis that Dr. X had given elsewhere, he
acknowledged it curtly: Ah, X, the philosopher! And
about another psychiatrist, he declared, To be an asylum psychiatrist is the mildest form of internment.
It was in Austria during the hardest time of the
post-war period. The crown seemed to be sinking into
83

a bottomless abyss, the cost of a living wage had

climbed enormously, a million was so to speak like a
small coin. The Austrian government, no longer able
to satisfy the hunger of its civil servants, was, however,
therefore all the more generous in the conferring of all
kinds of empty titles. In particular, the formerly highly
regarded title of privy councilor was issued in large
numbers, an unjustifiable act as courts in the federal
state no longer existed. About this Freud once laconically expressed his opinion: Now the ideal of every
true Austrian has been fulfilled: each is firstly a privy
councilor; each is secondly a millionaire.
After Freud had been operated on for a malignant
tumor and soon thereafter for a second time because of
metastasis, the circle of initiates gave him at best only
a year to live. The year slipped by, but the Professor
made no sort of preparation to die, but rather, quite on
the contrary, he began gradually to recuperate. Freud,
of course, had not failed to notice the countenances of
his associates, enemies as well as friends, and after the
year that had been allowed him had passed without
bringing him the expected end, he said ironically,
Never have I seen so many disappointed faces!
Once there was a conversation about a highly intelligent brain anatomist whom the bureaucracy in its
wisdom had named as a professor of psychiatry. Freud
had this to say about him: The truth is that he is not
knowledgeable about mental illness. However, because
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he is a privy councilor and a full professor, no one noticed this. For him, all of psychiatry was simply the
field upon which his genius could romp.
Another time, he told a story about the same privy
councilor: I had returned from France with the news
that hysteria also occurred with men. Who should provide the most strenuous opposition in the Neurological
Society but this same scholar and naturally the privy
councilor was held to be rightas in all such cases.
However, when a few years later, he lay near death and
I visited him for the last time eight days before he died,
he told me, You were absolutely right with your contention. The very best example of masculine hysteria
isI myself. Moreover, this is a strikingly illuminating example of why so many of Freuds teachings stirred
up such malicious, unconscious personal antagonisms.
Once Freud was invited by an academic organization to give a talk about sexual abstinence. So far as I
can recall, he spoke as follows: There is much to say
about this question, both for and against. Certainly, in
general, one must say that as a neurologist, I know of
no cases where too much sexual activity has been harmful. Here nature herself in the case of men bars too
much activity. On the other hand, however, a good
many people suffer from the consequences of abstinence. And perhaps I will have the laughers in the audience on my side if I tell you a humorous story: In
every family, there is some kind of aunt who asks the
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little children stupid questions. So one such aunt once

asked an alert six-year-old boy: Why do we have
teeth? And she received the fresh, cheeky answer: To
brush them. Of course! A silly question deserves just
such a smart-aleck answer. And why do we have sexual
organs? Well now, obviously for abstinence. I have
never heard the question of sexual abstinence answered
in a shorter, cleverer, and more honest way.
Among the oldest members of the intimate circle
was, for a long time, a colleague who habitually made
psychoanalysis understood through newspaper articles,
thereby, however, pushing his own seemly greatness
into the foreground. We will call him Dr. Serenus
[Wilhelm Stekel]. With a very lively disposition, he
would latch on to every new idea without further maturation and without the slightest qualm would call the
same thing white today and black tomorrow, and indeed often exclaim, Ive always said the thing is white
(or black), depending upon his particular conviction
at the time. Once, when he again came out in our circle
with a profuse smattering of ideas, the Professor tersely
replied: My dear colleague, having new ideas is not
what mattersthey are as cheap as blackberriesbut
rather it matters that they are right! Another time,
with his familiar voice of deep conviction, Dr. Serenus
proclaimed, No psychoanalyst can deny that the case
is such and such! Whereupon the Professor calmly replied that he wanted only to ask Dr. Serenus whether
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he considered him [Freud] as a psychoanalyst since he

took the liberty to say that he was of the opposite opinion as the honorable previous speaker.
Ten years had passed since the appearance of Studies on Hysteria. On its anniversary day, the intimates
put on a small celebration. A cake had been baked on
which had been written in icing Studies on Hysteria,
2nd Edition. One of the individual organizers, in a
humorous speech, explained that on the anniversary
day, a new edition of the groundbreaking book had appeared, but only one single copy and, handing Freud a
knife, asked the author to cut it open. Dr. Serenus, who
always loved big words, interrupted in a joking manner, Professor Freud doesnt cut open! [doesnt brag].
Freud, however, thus provoked, then handed the knife
to Dr. Serenus with the polite words: Then, if you
please, my dear colleague!
In a dialogue, one of the disciples had spoken very
profoundly such that then the master gave this verdict:
Much was spoken today and it was so clever that I
have understood nothing at all. About his opponents,
Freud once commented, It is curious how otherwise
very smart people suddenly become stupid when their
own complexes are alluded to. Then the most threadbare arguments are now good enough for them and explanations they would otherwise dismiss with disdain
appear to them suddenly noteworthy. One could call
this behavior resistance-stupidity or emotional
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feeble-mindedness. Bleuler once rightly wrote: One

cannot discuss Freudian theories in the same way as
other theories one is not able to accept. One has to take
affect into account as if Freud had seduced ones own
wife. That is sexual repression.
True humor without any thorns is only occasionally
encountered in Freud. So, for example, in the first section of the otherwise charming work On the History
of the Psychoanalytic Movement. Whoever wants to
be angry at the master for that should keep in mind
that he was a Jew, the greatest genius at the University
of Vienna, and yet still persecuted with hostility like no
other researcher. It is the literal truth when he writes:
Vienna has done everything possible, however,
to deny her share in the origin of psychoanalysis.
In no other place is the hostile indifference of
the learned and educated section of the population so evident to the analyst as in Vienna.
And perhaps what the shrewd Swiss critic C. A. Loosli
[18771959] said recently in his book The Terrible Jews
[1927] is relevant: The Jew has no humor; he has wit
because humor is the expression of those who have
overcome the softened ones. Wit, in contrast, belongs
to those who are hardened, always signifying renewed
suffering. It is wonderfully sharp, pointed, caustic; it is
not afraid of cruel self-ridicule, this Jewish wit of which
we Aryans catch only the lightning-like brilliance and
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enjoy but, however, are not able to recognize the narrow focal point that goes back to a reflection of corrosive suffering. We can recognize it only if we ourselves
are unfortunate enough, that is, if it was the case that
we ourselves were witty. He of us who is able to disclose
a full understanding of the Jewish joke, the richest fruit
of this wit together with its deep substratum, and its
entire origins, would benefit the Jews fraternization
with us. Through such fraternization, the sources of
Jewish wit would be exhausted, as that intellectuality
towards which the best of mankind strives would be
shared with us.
It was a minor sensation when Freud wrote a significant paper Humor for the psychoanalytic congress
in Innsbruck [1927, the paper was read at the congress
by Anna Freud]. Whoever heard this lecture at that
time understood why the Professor came to the treatment of this material so late in his life. In essence, the
paper merely brought humor into line with the most
recent ego-theories of Freud and he could not have
written it earlier because up until then, there was no
such theory. Certainly what we heard here was true
Freud, with insight achieved through work rich in ideas
that is always peculiar to the individual scholar. The
talk contained many significant and quite surprising
new things. But the deepest nature of humor was not
explained, perhaps just because Freud did not have any
humor himself.
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Freud and Judaism

I was born on May 6th, 1856, at Freiberg in

Moravia, a small town in what is now Czechoslovakia. My parents were Jews and I too have
remained a Jew. I have reason to believe that
my fathers family were settled for a long time
on the Rhine (at Cologne), that as a result of a
persecution of the Jews during the fourteenth
or fifteenth century, they fled eastwards, and
that, in the course of the nineteenth century,
they migrated back from Lithuania through
Galicia into German Austria. [emphasis added
by Sadger]
Thus reads the beginning of an autobiography that
Freud wrote in 1925 for the collection Medicine of the
Present-day in Self-Portraits. And he then continues:
When, in 1873, I first joined the University, I
experienced some appreciable disappointments.
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Above all, I found that I was expected to

feel myself inferior and an alien because I was
a Jew. I absolutely refused to do the first of
these things. I have never been able to see why
I should feel ashamed of my descent or, as
people were beginning to say, of my race. I
put up, without much regret, with my nonacceptance into the community; for it seemed
to me that in spite of this exclusion an active
fellow-worker could not fail to find some nook
or cranny in the framework of humanity. These
first impressions at the university, however, had
one consequence which was afterwards to prove
important; for an at early age I was made familiar with the fate of being in the Opposition and
of being put under the ban of the compact
majority. The foundations were thus laid for a
certain degree of independence of judgment.
[emphasis added by Sadger]
Let us now add what Sigmund Freud said to
George Sylvester Viereck [18841962] one evening in
his life, in an undeniable conversation: I speak German and I live in a German cultural milieu. I have felt
myself intellectually identified as a German for such a
long time until I observed the rise of anti-Semitism in
Germany and Austria. Since then, I prefer feeling like
a Jew [emphasis added by Sadger].
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Let us recapitulate once more the main points: I

was born a Jew and have remained a Jew. Without
much regret, I gave up the community of people the
Germans denied me. Since anti-Semitism has gained
the upper hand in Germany and Austria, it has made
me feel like a Jew. We will have to carefully check to
what extent this consciously stated view of life corresponds with the Professors unconscious views. But first
allow me to make a short historical digression.
When the revolutions of the year 1848 in the civilized countries proclaimed complete equality for all
peoples, including the Jews, which the later liberal constitutions would adopt in their national basic laws,
most of our comrades took the promise of equality seriously. They imagined that the golden age had come,
that they were actually people like others, possessing
the same duties and just as important, the same rights as
Christians. And for this reason, now the most advanced
among us, without further ado, were henceforth ready
to no longer feel like Jews, but only like Germans,
French, Swiss, etc. possessing a mosaic of beliefs. They
confirmed this plan then and there through the act of
placing their best strengths at the service of their respective fatherlands. But then, however, they had a sad experience. From year to year, it became more clear that
full equality of all men without regard to nationality
and belief existed only on uncaring paper and even the
most liberal Christians did not go so far as to see the
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Jews as members of the general community or to grant

them equal rights in practice. Just a few months ago,
the above-mentioned Swiss critic and poet C. A. Loosli
in The Terrible Jews made the following statement: In
all states, one has begun to recognize the human and
citizens rights of Jews and to see them as equal under
public law to the remaining citizens. But this was only
the first step. The second step would have had to consist of also recognizing Jews as having equal rights socially. This would have reached a peak with the breaking up of the intellectual ghettoes. But no people now,
with perhaps the exception of the English, have dared
to take this step. And we may boldly add, according to
communications from experts: not even the English!
One of Freuds stories in The Interpretation of
Dreams teaches us just how subjugated the position of
the Jews was before 1848:
I may have been ten or twelve years old, when
my father began to take me with him on his
walks and reveal to me in his talk his views upon
things in the world we live in. Thus it was, on
one such occasion, that he told me a story to
show me how much better things were now than
they had been in his days. When I was a young
man, he said, I went for a walk one Saturday in
the streets of your birthplace; I was well dressed,
and had a new fur cap on my head. A Christian
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came up to me and with a single blow knocked

off my cap into the mud and shouted: Jew! get
off the pavement! And what did you do? I
asked. I went into the roadway and picked up
my cap, was his quiet reply. This struck me as
unheroic conduct on the part of the big, strong
man who was holding the little boy by the hand.
I contrasted this situation with another which
fitted my feelings better: the scene in which
Hannibals father, Hamilcar Barca, made his boy
swear before the household altar to take vengeance on the Romans. Ever since that time
Hannibal had had a place in my fantasies. . . .
Hannibal had been the favorite hero of my later
school days. Like so many boys of that age, I had
sympathized in the Punic Wars not with the Romans but with the Carthaginians. And when in
the higher classes I began to understand for the
first time what it meant to belong to an alien
race, and anti-Semitic feelings among the other
boys warned me that I must take up a definite
position, the figure of the Semitic general rose
still higher in my esteem. To my youthful mind
Hannibal and Rome symbolized the conflict
between the tenacity of Jewry and the organization of the Catholic church. And the increasing
importance of the effects of the anti-Semitic
movement upon our emotional life helped to fix
the thoughts and feelings of those early days.
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One would think that this early experience of his

fatherwhom the son loved and idolized his entire life
and whose death, according to the introduction of The
Interpretation of Dreams was described as the most
important event in his lifewould have had a determinative effect on Freuds relationship to Judaism. Especially since the Zionist movement, in reaction to the
ever stronger increasing anti-Semitism, continued to
recruit furthereven among Freuds close family. Did
not Heine put these words into the mouth of his stag
Hyacinth: Judaism is not a religion at all, but bad
luck! Then the national-Jewish movement emphasized: Being a Jew is not solely a matter of belief; it
means, above all, solidarity with his people. Zionism, as defined by [Theodor] Herzl [18601904],
means to return to Judaism before returning to the
land of the Jews. With this program, he won the hearts
of the Jewish intellectuals, and above all, the hearts of
the entire Jewish youth.
Intellectuals are not very concerned with religion
alone. Most of the intellectually advanced of any denomination are at best idle with respect to matters of
belief and in their hearts are basically irreligious. This
may hold for Jews with their sharply critical minds,
perhaps in even greater numbers than for believers of
other faiths. Thus the majority of them felt completely
deracinated by Herzls proposal as soon as they were
no longer able to believe. There remained for them
hardly options left other than to assimilate, to become
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as indistinguishable as possible from their Christian

surroundings, even if it meant being baptized. However, such attempts to warm up to the Christians did
not please the latter, but instead, as daily experience
taught, mostly made the Jews the object of contempt.
So the best of them were beaten back to Judaism
by their enemies. Here Zionism had brought about
change. From the perpetually frightened, assimilated
Jew was created an upstanding group-conscious Jew,
someone to whom, even the reluctant enemy, acting
against its will, could not deny respect.
How did Freud, who had to experience the whole
development of anti-Semitism in his own life, who encountered a double resistance against his teachings, because he was besides everything else a Jew, react to the
endeavors of his people? If one reads the introductory
words of this chapter, so one might believe that Freud
had stood with his own people, through all times, ever
since he noticed the rise of anti-Semitism. Unfortunately because my memory reaches back more than
thirty years, I have much to report that is not in accord
with that assumption. From the beginning, Jews
formed the core group of the psychoanalytic community, certainly a good 95 percent in the first decade and
a half. When later a larger number of Christians joined,
they either moved away from Jewish teachings like the
Swiss group under C. G. Jung or they did not accomplish anything significant. I cannot believe it was just
96

the rarity of Christian disciples that induced Freud to

make every single one of them his most special favorite.
Yet the fact is that one such Christian follower was
liked far more than ten of his Jewish ones. Each of
them from the outset was in the masters good graces
even if he was just one of the completely common
crowd, even, indeed, if he was inferior. Even intellectual inferiority did not stop the Professor from personally asking him to join the innermost circle. In another
case, Freud defended to the utmost one of his Christian
disciples against whom serious accusations had rightly
been made, and he surprisingly extolled a female student for her beautiful name. Finally, in a fourth case,
a student had made a minimal discovery, of practically
no importance and this became an occasion to celebrate as a singular enrichment of The Interpretation of
Dreams, while the work of a Jewish colleague who had
nearly uncovered all of dream symbolism before Freud
was not mentioned, or at best in an admonishing aside.
Basically, Freud saw in every Jew who unfailingly
stood with his people something that went against his
German national consciousness even though it was
precisely because of his Jewishness that the German
scientific establishment had shunned him. As amiable,
charming, and appreciative as the Professor was towards the most insignificant Christian, he could be
surly towards his able Jewish colleagues. If he did not
wish a Jewish student welland how readily this was
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the case!he would find fault with the tiniest grammatical error or he would in the conversation praise
the students diligence by which he meant to say: You
have read a great deal but what you are lacking is simply your own ideas. Most characteristic, however, was
his relationship to the favorite of the gods, C. G. Jung.
I have already in earlier chapters detailed how he
showered Jung with credit, praised him for discoveries
which he himself had made, and finally at the Nuremberg congress, without further ado, he was ready to give
away his whole young discipline to the Christian clinic.
Here I must enlarge upon my previous report. While
the Viennese students were stormily objecting to such
suicide, and were discussing their very next steps in a
side-room, the Professor appeared, uninvited, among
them, and spoke with fierce agitation: You are for the
most part Jews and for that reason you are not suited to
make friends for the new teachings. Jews must resign
themselves to being cultural dung. I must find a
connection to the academy! [emphasis added by
Sadger]. He, of course, never achieved the hoped-for
connection to the Christian scientific establishment
and such a connection would still not have happened
even if the Christianization of psychoanalysis had not
failed due to the objections of the Viennese students.
Yes, I even dare to make the following claim: had Freud
died two decades earlier, then he himself and his entire
teachings in spite of all his enormous genius, would
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have become nothing more than mere cultural dung

for the Christian scientific establishment and its representatives. Some sort of privy councilor or unknown
public health officer would then have again revived
psychoanalysisobviously in a suitably proper recast
formand at most named Freud as one of its pioneers.
After all of this, I need to strongly emphasize: It is
not the case, as Freud maintained, that he had always
felt like a Jew. He would have liked best to have been
a German and was only condemned to go back to
despised Judaism very much against his will. He was,
unfortunately, not able, despite all his efforts, to shed
his Judaism and simply be a German. So finally he remained a Jew, though not out of loyalty to his hereditary people. Since the Christians did not want anything
to do with him and his teachings, there was simply no
other path open. Particularly with respect to things related to Judaism Freuds character did not stand the test
of time.
If we make a comparison with two other Jewish
geniuses, [Josef ] Popper-Lynkeus [18381921] and Albert Einstein [18791955], this could teach us how little
there is to praise about Freuds relationship to Judaism. Lynkeus, the greatest ethical genius since Baruch
Spinoza [16321677], made much harsher judgments
about all positive religions than did Freud. Yet at the
end of his life, afflicted with serious illness, unable to
work, he bequeathed the only thing that he still had
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left, his large library, to the Jewish National Library in

Jerusalem. And Albert Einstein, the genius of physics,
refused all invitations from money-laden snobbish
America: he was too busy with his scientific work.
However, when [Chaim] Weizman [18741952] developed his great advertising campaign for Palestine and
cabled him: Come, the Jewish people need you! Einstein left all his scientific work behind and came to help
his hard-pressed people. Freud, on the other hand, the
third genius, was content to remain a Jew, that is, he
had not allowed himself to be baptized. But he was
never an upstanding, consciously-aware Jew to the very
end. I must unfortunately acknowledge that the human
in Freud was never as great as his scientific genius!
No chapter of this little book was as hard for me to
write as this one, but I promised to show the whole
Freud, not just the genius, but also the fallible human.
And thus, with Ammonius, I want to cry out: Amicus
Plato, sed magis amica veritas [Plato is dear to me, but
dearer still is truth, from Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics I, 4, 1096a 16].

100

Freud and Lay Analysis

And now there is a new parlor-game to play, psychoanalysis! One can turn this way and that, but in the end, sex is always the answer which is why it is so popular. The young
people are incredibly serious when they play it and believe
that God has shown them something exalted and erudite.
A great number of foreign words are also included so that
men can take it very seriously: instead of sex one says libido.
Men are frightfully stupid! I come more and more to
that conclusion. They let themselves be entrapped by a
few learned phrases. As if one didnt already know all this
without such hocus pocus! But with hocus pocus, they can
all have a clear conscience. And libido sounds so refined.
Bruno Kestner, Das Kussbuch

The motto which I have placed above these lines shows

both the popularity as well as the little involuntary detour psychoanalysis has taken in the last few years.
During the first terrible years after the war, the new
discipline did not move from the academy into wider
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circles. Rather it was imported to the masses like a

sport from England and America, and as a result it was
mainly reduced to daily, social, and coffeehouse chatter. This growing popular interest was welcome when
compared to the decade-long rejection by the academy.
This interest, furthermore, lay along the path of legitimate development such that henceforth many scholars
began to educate themselves about the new psychology
of the unconscious and its dependence upon limited
drives. Finally, it could no longer be denied that this
spread of psychoanalysis proved to be an incredible
stimulus among different disciplines. Only it was necessary that psychoanalysis not become degraded as a
plaything for idle hours and even less as a little cloak
for sultry sensuality. Practically speaking, it was worst
of all that untrained doctors turned towards the new
methods of treatment and in recent years even amateurs and bloody laymen.
How great the danger was can be proven by the fact
that already in 1910, Freud had to take a position against
wild psychoanalysts. Such was his term for those doctors who, without really making themselves familiar
with the new science, singled out just one, not even essential, point and on the basis of that gave wrong and
even offensive advice. It is worth noticing and keeping
in mind that Freud at that time as yet for all the years before and even for a long time afterwards wanted nothing

102

to do with lay analysisin contrast with his current

stance. The few non-doctors who belonged at that time
to the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society applied their experiences with the new discipline exclusively to their
field of specialization, without actively trying to heal the
mentally ill. And even the house factotum, Otto Rank
was only permitted in those days to examine legendary
and poetic material, and questions concerning the philosophy of religion and dreams. (In On the History of
the Psychoanalytic Movement, 1914, Freud says of
Rank, We induced him to go through the Gymnasium, and the university, and to devote himself to the
non-medical application of psychoanalysis. This last
also holds for Reiks beginnings.) Freuds advocacy of lay
analysis to cure the ill began much later. The whole
issue only became acute when the institutionalization of
psychoanalytic practice, under the influence of foreign
countries, began to become a profitable business.
Before I go into the question of lay analysis by outlining its pros and cons, it seems to me to be useful to
deal with a few preliminary questions. Why is it that
some doctors support lay analysis while othersthey
are the majorityare most strongly opposed? And why
did Freud advocate it with such vehemence in the last
few years? I dont believe a conclusive answer can be
given without at least considering the historical development of the personage of the master.

103

In earlier chapters, I have already outlined with

what unprecedented scorn, mockery, and slander Freud
was subjected to over the decades. And to be sure,
this happened chiefly on the part of the Viennese doctors, and especially from both those aspiring to be
psychiatrists and those who were already established
practitioners. It is literally true what Freud already in
1914 in On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement explained:
In no other place is the hostile indifference of
the learned and educated section of the population so evident to the analyst as in Vienna.
In 1926, in The Question of Lay Analysis, he
continued:
Doctors have no historical claim to the sole
possession of psychoanalysis. On the contrary,
until recently they have met it with everything
possible that could damage it; from the shallowest ridicule to the gravest calumny.
And finally in 1927 in his Postscript, he remembered,
the unfriendliness and indeed the animosity
with which the medical profession treated analysis from the very first. That would seem to imply
that it can have no claims over analysis today.
And though I do not accept that implication, I
104

still feel some doubts as to whether the present

wooing of psychoanalysis by the doctors is based,
from the point of view of the libido theory,
upon the first or upon the second of Abrahams
sub-stageswhether they wish to take possession of their object for the purpose of destroying
or of preserving it.
Now one must bear in mind that Sigmund Freud
was always an extreme hater. That he was always able
to hate by far more than he could love is connected to
his strong sadistic disposition. (How little a judge of
human nature can analyze himself seems strange, but is
indicated when Freud in his above-mentioned Postscript makes the following statement: My innate sadistic disposition was not a very strong one. The exact
opposite is true, especially if one does not necessarily
think of sadism in terms of the bloody deeds of the Marquis de Sade.) Now just imagine a sadist who has the
ability to destroy his enemies but who at the same time
is forced to remain silent in order that the new teachings
associated with him will be considered. Then one can
comprehend how such repression had to intensify into a
lifelong hatred. (In The Question of Lay Analysis,
Freud lets the Impartial Person say to him, I formed
the impression that you are dominated by a hostility
against the medical profession to the historical explanation of which you yourself have pointed the way.) No
105

wonder, then, that Freud saw doctors as malevolent opponents, especially the narrow professional local colleagues in psychiatry. And unfortunately, one has to acknowledge objectively: not entirely without reason! It
is humanly understandable that Freud would have felt
himself more drawn toward laymen who, owing to their
deficient knowledge, would be afraid to contradict him.
They were unconditional supporters of their lord and
master to a far greater extent than any doctor.
In comparison with this particularly decisive motivation for hatred against doctors, especially the Viennese, all other factors recede. But I will enumerate
them very briefly. It was a gracious act of humanity that
Freud wanted to take care of his favorite student Rank
and that he allowed him to study, though not at the
medical school. By directing rich English and French
patients to Rank, he thus was able to take care of him,
which he later continued to do with Dr. Reik as well.
Finally, one can also well understand that he, as a father, was eager to take the trouble to secure the future
of his daughter Anna.
Freuds above-mentioned hostility towards doctors
is also betrayed in the supposed motivations for their
resistance that he wanted to attribute to them in his
The Question of Lay Analysis. It seems to me worthwhile to mention how little Freuds sharp mind understood his own actions and how little he examined the
reasons for his partisanship, never advising a neutral
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position. And it is significant that the conversion was

not successful, clearly because the reasons brought
forward to the high judicial official, a man with a
friendly attitude and a mind of unusual integrity was
not convinced. (Freud confirmed this himself in his
Postscript.)
But now to turn to the supposed reasons of the
doctors, including Freuds own medical students and
colleagues: I think, the master said, It must be
the power of professional feeling. To impute motives
of competition to them would be not only to accuse
them of basic sentiments but also to attribute a strange
shortsightedness to them. Practical considerations
also mean nothing to him. If difficulties concerning
differential diagnoses arose, these would occur no less
among medical graduates who sometimes had to send
their patients to a colleague because they were not
allowed to physically examine them. That the patient
might have less trust in a lay analyst than in a doctor of
medicine is refuted by the fact that those non-doctors
that practice analysis today are not any chance collection of riffraff, but people of academic education,
doctors of philosophy, educators, together with a few
women of great experience in life and outstanding personality. The demands of medical knowledge grow
from year to year. To expect doctors to become familiar
with the mental side of illness would require a lengthening of student years, a waste of energy for which, in
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these difficult times, no economic justification can be

found.
Freud imagines as a preparatory institution for
psychoanalysts a college that would, alongside depth
psychology, teach:
an introduction to biology, as much as possible
of the science of sexual life, and familiarity with
the symptomatology of psychiatry.
Furthermore, a series of branches of knowledge
which are remote from medicine and the doctor
does not come across in his practice: the history
of civilization, mythology, the psychology of religion and the science of literature. Unless he is
well at home with these subjects, an analyst can
make nothing of a large amount of his material.
By way of compensation, the great mass of what
is taught in medical schools is of no use to him
for his purposes. A knowledge of the anatomy of
tarsal bones, of the constitution of hydrocarbons,
of the course of cranial nerves, a grasp of all that
medicine has brought to light on bacilli as exciting causes of disease and the means of combating
them, on serum reactions and on neoplasms
all this knowledge, which is undoubtedly of the
highest value in itself, is nevertheless of no
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consequence to him; it does not concern him; it

neither helps him directly to understand a neurosis and to cure it nor does it contribute to a sharpening of those intellectual capacities on which
his occupation makes the greatest demands.
Freud then refers further to how incredibly useful
psychoanalysis could be for the humanities, if its representatives first underwent such an analysis themselves
in order then to be able
to apply its methods and angles of approach to
their own materials. . . . To carry out these analyses a number of analysts will be needed, for
whom any medical knowledge will have particularly little importance. But these teaching
analystslet us call themwill require to have
had a particularly careful education. If this is not
to be stunted, they must be given an opportunity
of collecting experience from instructive and informative cases; and since healthy people who
also lack the motive of curiosity do not present
themselves for analysis, it is once more only upon
neurotics that it will be possible for the teaching
analystsunder careful supervisionto be educated for their subsequent non-medical activity.
But why exclusively lay people who would first have to
be educated, and who would have to have a proper
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training analysis which is still very rare, is not explained. Why not choose already previously psychoanalytically trained doctors? Here the logic makes little sense. Because one needs several training analyses,
lay people must be trained. And if one wants to train
lay people, one must allow them to treat the ill. Quod
erat demonstrandum! This kind of proof reminds me
a little bit of the earlier teaching institutions for blind
adults. They were trained for several vocations. They
learn, for example, how to make brushes and weave
baskets. They can furthermore become piano tuners
and finally even teachers at institutions for the blind.
Let us follow Freuds argument further, above all
with regard to the future college. We have been told
what sorts of medical knowledge a proper psychoanalyst doesnt need, and what, on the other hand, he lacks.
Freud was especially taken with the seven tarsal bones
and the constitution of hydrocarbons. Now I know of
no case in which a student was tripped up by precisely
those tarsal bones during a difficult examination, and
the knowledge of hydrocarbons that is required of
young medical students is not nearly as detailed as that
of someone who is a chemist by profession. Such examination items might now and then be annoying but certainly not life-threatening. And it is not otherwise with
serum reactions and neoplasms.
On the other hand, what all does one have to learn
at the future college for psychoanalysis? In addition to
depth psychology, an introduction to biology, as much
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as possible of the science of sexual life, familiarity with

the symptomatology of psychiatry, and further, the history of civilization, mythology, the psychology of religion, and the science of literature. (In his Postscript,
Freud expands this: A scheme of training for analysts
has still to be created. It must include elements from
the mental sciences, from psychology, the history of
civilization and sociology, as well as from anatomy,
biology and the study of evolution.) Let us consider
the last-named four disciplines with which usually a
doctor could at best only occasionally occupy himself
out of personal interest, and certainly not focusing on
more than one discipline. Any single one of these four
branches of knowledge would require a whole lifetime,
or, should we say more modestly, many years of a life if
one were to undertake it in earnest and not as a mere
bloody dilettantecertainly far more time than to
study tarsal bones together with serum reactions. But,
however, add to these the first four named medical or
half-medical subjects. How will one teach the listeners
as much as possible about the science of sexual life
without also covering normal and pathological anatomy and physiology, and not just of the sexual organs
but the whole nervous, muscular and vascular system,
and one can hardly ignore also the other glands of the
body and that means endocrinology (the study of inner
secretion, the secretions of the so-called blood glands).
And the symptomatology of psychiatry is hard
enough to remember without frequent visits to a
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mental institution and without at least a more detailed

study of the brain.
I have two kinds of objections to Freuds proposals:
They expand the teaching plan of psychoanalysis improperly in one direction and let it contract improperly
in the other. One could, for example, ask why are only
just those four humanities emphasized, though to be
sure, in the Postscript it was expanded to include sociological materials just as it was expanded in the medical direction to include anatomy and the study of evolution. It would be hard to believe that these four
disciplines were picked out because doctors of philosophy Rank and Reik had just worked in them. After all,
the yearly runs of Imago and the Zeitschrift fr psychoanalytische Pdagogik conclusively show how art and
art history, anthropology, linguistics, and above all,
childhood education have already contributed a great
deal, not to mention other sources. If one absorbs all
this into the teaching plan for the future college, then it
will grow into an unlimited philosophical department
with a smaller medical appendage. Then, however, one
will have an amount of material to learn so vast that no
individual would be able to learn it in one lifetime. Im
afraid that a listener in such a college would stand, in
terms of basic knowledge, barely higher than an educated lay person, or above a nurse as far as medical
knowledge is concerned.
When Freud in his Postscript, asks of analysts
that they
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should overcome the one-sidedness that is

fostered by instruction in medical schools and
that they should resist the temptation to flirt
with endocrinology and the autonomic nervous
system, when what is needed is an apprehension
of psychological facts with the help of a framework of psychological concepts
then I must respond: Those doctors who are now practicing psychoanalysis are far from being one-sided.
They neither have the time nor the will to indulge in
such peripheral studies. Even the youngest, most
knowledge-hungry colleagues are content with the two
years spent in a psychiatric clinic, the preliminary study
required in order to familiarize themselves with nervous
and mental diseases. I cannot name a single individual
who has intensely focused on inner secretions or the
autonomic nervous system, or who would have let his
psychoanalytic technique be influenced by such things.
Freud agreed that
the great principles of pathologythe theories
of inflammation, suppuration, necrosis, and of
the metabolism of the bodily organsstill retain
their importance
for dentists who represent a particular specialization
but who in Austria are required to be doctores universae medicinae. But there is, however, also an organic
component with psychoneuroses, that is surely of
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decisive importance during interaction. On a theoretical level, we can follow this interaction more clearly by
observing the master himself. I dont think that any
dentist is influenced by the great principles more
than Freud is by endocrinology. Did he not do more
than merely flirt with endocrinology in the fourth
edition of his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality by giving up his earlier sexual toxicity theory in
favor of a newer inner secretion one? Further: in the
Postscript he tells us that he spent a lot of time studying zoology, chemistry and histology, without these
studies, which were hardly less superfluous for an
understanding of psychoanalysis than the study of tarsal bones, preventing him from becoming Freud. Yes,
perhaps one might risk claiming that it was precisely
the critical influence of [Ernst] Brcke [18191892] the
greatest authority that ever influenced him and his exactitude in psychological methods that were decisive
for Freuds having such a perceptive attitude towards
the problems of psychoanalysis. Finally, I want to stress
that recently even sensible doctors such as Eugen
Bleuler have been enthusiastically advocating the
psychological permeation of all medicine.
Since the master has merely told us over and over
what the doctors neglected and have not done, we want
for once to put forth a short counter-claim. What have
these highly praised lay people accomplished for psychoanalysis up to now? Certainly, they have applied to
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the humanities what Freud and his doctor collaborators discovered and everyone mastering a special area
benefited greatly from the purely medical discoveries.
But, however, how do things look in reverse? Has any
lay person discovered any psychoanalytic truth that has
enriched our medical activity or our knowledge, a truth
that did not purely and simply derive from or confirm
what Freud in his genius had already previously taught
us? Even if the master secretly gave them his ideas
which was not a rare occurrence, a knowledgeable person would notice in an instant this graft of his great intuition. Even where lay persons do have a unique place,
in child analysis, the decisive model in all of the roots of
its methodology and understanding came from the
interpretation and treatment of the phobia of Little
Hans. If we are to find lay analysts indispensable, then
one must also find their achievements indispensable or
creative. But to this day, such proof has not yet materialized and probably never will. (Ernst [sic] Jones who is
usually an opponent of lay analysis does argue in its
favor by mentioning Hans [sic] Sachs provided contributions to many technical questions and the most
striking example of symbolism. In a whole series of examples, the study of folklore and of comparative religion, etc., has revealed to us the significance and understanding of continually recurring symbols that until
then had remained unknown to us in our clinical
work. To this we can only respond that Hans Sachs
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technical innovations can hardly be discovered with a

naked eye, and that for an understanding of symbolism,
we have nothing to thank the lay people for, but rather
Dr. Stekel who in his Conditions of Nervous Anxiety and
Their Treatment [1908] and later The Language of
Dreams [1911] before anyone taught us to understand
dreams. Even Freud himself in the first edition of his
Interpretation of Dreams did not yet know this symbolism. Now I know very well that Stekel is outlawed in
psychoanalytic circles and also that no one can ascribe
to me a particular fondness or even a weakness for him.
But there remains one law of scientific decorum and
that is to acknowledge merit, even that of opponents.
And therefore I am obliged to say: It was not lay people
who opened up for us the understanding of symbolism, but Wilhelm Stekel on the basis of his medical
psychoanalyses!)
One can thus summarize something like this:
The collaboration of lay people has until now merely
confirmed what was discovered by doctors, mostly
by Freud, and has never contributed anything really
new or therapeutically exceptional. The psychoanalytic
healing method and the new psychology created by it
can exist without difficulty without drawing upon lay
activity of any kind. If we leave aside child analysis,
therapy would not suffer the slightest loss without lay
analysis. On the other hand, the humanities would be
deprived of an important possible means of insight if
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they ignored psychoanalytic findings. It is, however, of

no consequence whether these findings are transmitted
to them by doctors or by specialists who were psychoanalytically trained.
Freud is constantly tormented by the fear that
psychoanalysis will become swallowed up by medicine which is so hostile to it. I cannot share this concern at all especially because its technique is so hard to
learn. The old privy councilors will certainly not do it,
and even the Assistants in psychiatry have up until now
not had much to do with psychoanalysis. On the other
hand, it is again not understandable why a lay person
who wished to apply psychoanalytic insights to anthropology or linguistics would first need to devote years of
work learning all the tricks of the technique. It would
suffice if each lay person let himself be analyzed, and
that he mastered the psychoanalytic literature.
Freuds book The Question of Lay Analysis consists of two parts: a first part which in its brilliant and
lucid expression recalls the best times of the master,
and a second, later part, whose arguments are extremely
vulnerable.
I want to add the following to all that I have already
said: The critical question seems to me to be: Is the
practice of the psychoanalytic treatment of neurotics a
medical activity or not? I believe there can be no doubt
at all about the answer. And if the question needs to
be answered with an emphatic yes, then the treatment
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necessarily should be reserved for medical psychoanalysts. There is also, however, as practice teaches, important medical hesitations about lay analysis. It is readily
pointed out that a medical investigation always comes
first and, on the other hand, that doctors of medicine
now and then are forced to demand help from their
colleagues. Here, however, lies the essential difference
between lay and medical treatment.
As a practical matter, the confusion between hysteria and schizophrenia has proven to be the most significant and dangerous mistake. It goes without saying
that even a doctor who is himself both neurologist and
psychiatrist at the beginning of a differential diagnosis
cannot always decide with certainty. Then when he begins an analysis, it is mostly in the first hours that he
can diagnose the probable psychosis or at the very least
can make a very strong guess and then take appropriate
measures. Experience teaches that it is just at this point
that the lay analyst is easily surprised by the unexpected
outbreak of schizophrenia, which then puts all of psychoanalysis in a bad light.
Now, however, to the much more frequent cases of
conversion hysteria and anxiety. We know that during
the course of being treated for a host of symptoms that
occur, the patient without exception always attributes
them to some kind of physical cause or severe organic
affect. And, to be sure, the outbreak of nervous symptoms and the constant anxiety associated with them are
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not always something occasional, but rather occur repeatedly and so often that they become the center of all
complaints. Here the lay analyst now gets into a difficult situation that a doctor hardly encounters. If he is
conscientious, then he must send the patient to a doctor for every single complaint which, the more often
this is repeated, will hardly increase the trust of the patient in the analyst. Or if he is less conscientious, however, and says to himself, Oh, the patient is probably
just being hysterical again! then it is quite possible
that he will overlook an organic affect or a psychosis
with all the consequences that arise from this.
I hope I am not committing an act of indiscretion
if I cite a blatant example. Dr. [Hermine] Hug-Helmut
[18711924], who was perhaps the most qualified
child analyst, often confessed to me her reflections, her
doubts whether or not a lack of medical education
might cause her to overlook or not recognize something. She questioned me with every individual case to
get medical advice. Since we often collaborated in joint
scientific work, she had ample opportunity to seek reassurance. But now what about the other lay analysts?
Not everyone has the university at home as Anna
Freud does. In most cases, lay analysts will either be
too conscientious or not sufficiently conscientious
with all of the above-mentioned consequences. In contrast, the medical psychoanalyst who has had not just
neurological-psychiatric training, but general medical
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training will be able to decide for himself with certainty

from the type of complaint presented what measures to
take and only in the rarest of cases, or if the patient
himself requests it, will he have to refer the patient to a
specialist. He will, however, also be able to say to the
patient, I am referring you because you are urgently
pressing me to do so, but I am telling you that it is unnecessary, that there is nothing physically wrong with
you and that you are throwing your money out the
window.
Although Freud has faith that the general public
will know itself how to decide when to turn to a doctor
or to a lay analyst, everyday experience speaks against
this. Today, Hllerhansl (a southern Austrian quack
who ascertains all illnesses from urine samples and
cures them with herbs) has a far greater crowd of patients and is busier that the most experienced, ablest
internists. And it is of no use to have a later rational reflection after a patient has once been damaged by a less
conscientious lay analyst. Such a patient might then,
having become wiser, not turn towards a medical analyst, but instead simply throw the whole entire healing
method overboard. Probably he would go to our competitors. But certainly he would complain a lot, taking
care to give the widest dissemination of our failures.
We have heard above which wonderful qualities
Freud has ascribed to lay analysts. They are not any
chance collection of riffraff, but people of academic
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education, doctors of philosophy, educationists, together with a few women of great experience in life and
outstanding personality. This might have been the
case as long as one could count the healing lay analysts on the fingers of one hand. But this is no longer
generally true and from year to year will become even
less true as further cohorts of lay analysts turn towards
treatment of the ill. Most English, Americans and
Dutch have sufficiently recognized this while among
most Austrian and German doctors, Freud, through the
sheer power of his personalitynot his argumenthas
silenced tentative hesitations. When Freud boasted in
his Postscript, that many colleagues have reduced
their extreme parti pris and that the majority has accepted his view, the truth is that at least 90 percent of
the psychoanalytic medical community would have rejected treatment by lay analysts had not Freud and a
few blind followers been at work. There were, however,
two kinds of reasons for the famous reduction of partiality: First of all, backbone and strength of character
are not very widespread in the world and doctors constitute no great exception, and secondly, no one in the
least among the medical analysts wanted to stand up
against Freud, the venerated one. They preferred to be
persuaded that the lay analysts were secular caretakers
of souls, the enticing bait that Freud threw at them.
But what impels so many lay persons without medical
and psychiatric training among other omissions in
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training to treat neurotics is hardly the need to be secular caretakers of souls nor a desire to gain knowledge
or understanding, but rather in most cases doubtless
the prospect of a prosperous business. Lay analysis
promises to become a lucrative living. Take away from
them the possibility of well-paid hours and let them
work without any compensation and the grand enthusiasm for the secular caretaking of souls would quickly
die down.
If you will permit me, I will conclude this section
with the same sentences that I have already used once
in the discussion of lay analysis: I firmly believe that
patients should be treated exclusively by doctors and
that any lay analysis should be avoided by them. The
only exception I would allow is the educational healing
of children and adolescents. Here it is a matter of a
sense of how a child is raised, a sense that doctors and
even pediatricians possess only in the rarest cases, and
only secondarily of medical knowledge. And besides,
every male doctor runs the risk to begin with of being
perceived as a father figure from whom the adolescent
fears the threat of castration, a threat which for a
mother or mother-imago is much less or doesnt exist at
all. But the adult neurotic absolutely requires a doctor.
It may indeed be very useful for doctors of philosophy
and other lay persons to do their utmost to familiarize
themselves with the results of psychoanalysis to help
them in their different disciplines to achieve better
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comprehension and to know how to bring this knowledge to those proper experts who do not have this
training. Lay persons can here be an extraordinary
blessing, each for his own special discipline. Indeed, in
their hands, psychoanalysis can have an even more
stimulating effect than evolutionary theory, Darwinism, had decades ago. But from the treatment of adult
neurotics who require purely psychoanalytic general
medical knowledge together with special neurologicalpsychiatric training, lay persons should absolutely keep
far awayeven if they are doctors of philosophy.

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From the Last Years of

Freuds Life

It was in the fall of the year 1923 when I heard the terrible news that Freud had become ill due to a malignant
growth on the upper jaw that then had been operated
on. The cancer had returned and spread which had
made a second operation necessary. The doctors had
given the patient at most just one year to live. The
mood of the disciples was deeply depressed. And even
when Freud appeared again in the year 1924 to speak to
the Society, no one could really be happy about this sign
of life. The impression made by the Professors speech
was simply horrible. Already the pale, deeply sunken
face had an extremely sad look. And when one heard
what had formerly been so melodious a voice sound
distressed, one could tell by the bad sound how affected
his speech was. Everyone looked down, embarrassed,
their eyes lowered. Nevertheless, what Freud said still

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remained at the same high level as before, only one had

to first, with some difficulty, get used to the new tonality. We could not hide this reaction from the Professor
and he did not appear again thereafter until the obsequies for Karl Abraham in the year 1926 drew him back
to the Society one last time for a very brief moment.
Also what the most intimate members of the group
reported did not sound very encouraging. They described the deep depression of the Professor during the
first months: I am a dead man, Dont count on me any
more ! One has to keep in mind that the death complex had always been very strong in Freud. I remember,
for example, the psychoanalytic congress in Nuremberg. On the afternoon before, Freud himself set out
on a walk, followed by a group of his disciples. And to
what place did his path lead? To the cemetery, far beyond the city, although he had no precious grave to
visit. So he was always drawn to the dead. And he even
took an immediate interest in people who had been entirely unsympathetic to him as soon as he heard of their
death and he never forgot to send his condolences. It
always remained that the surest way to attract Freuds
attention was to lie down and die.
The Professor wrote one of his best essays when the
World War with its massacres was at its height:
Thoughts for the Times on War and Death [1915]. I
extract from it the following passages:

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Our attitude towards death was far from

straightforward. To anyone who listened to us
we were of course prepared to maintain that
death was the necessary outcome of life, that
everyone owes nature a death and must expect to
pay the debtin short, that death was natural,
undeniable and unavoidable. In reality, however,
we were accustomed to behave as if it were otherwise. We showed an unmistakable tendency to
put death on one side, to eliminate it from life.
We tried to hush it up; indeed we even have a
saying: to think of something as though it were
death! That is, as though it were our own death,
of course. It is indeed impossible to imagine our
own death; and whenever we attempt to do so
we can perceive that we are in fact still present
as spectators. Hence the psychoanalytic school
could venture on the assertion that at bottom
no one believes in his own death, or, to put the
same thing in another way, that in the unconscious everyone of us is convinced of his own
immortality.
When another person dies, we are always
deeply affected, and it is as though we were
badly shaken in our expectations. Our habit is to
lay stress on the fortuitous causation of the
deathaccident, disease, infection, advanced
age; in this way we betray an effort to reduce
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death from a necessity to a chance event . . . Towards the actual person who has died we adopt a
special attitudesomething almost like admiration for someone who has accomplished a very
difficult task.
Finally someone close to us dies, and then
Our hopes, our desires and our pleasures lie in
the grave with him, we will not be consoled, we
will not fill the lost ones place. We behave as if
we were a kind of Asra, who die when those
they love die. [emphasis added by Sadger]
If we disregard the experiences of war, then
the question arises. . . . Should we not confess
that in our civilized attitude towards death we
are once again living psychologically beyond
our means, and should we not rather turn back
and recognize the truth? Would it not be better
to give death the place in reality and in our
thoughts which is its due, and to give a little
more prominence to the unconscious attitude
towards death which we have hitherto so carefully suppressed? . . .The old saying: Si vis
pacem, para bellum. If you want to preserve
peace, arm for war could be changed in keeping
with the times to: Si vis vitam, para mortem. If
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you want to endure life, prepare yourself for

death.
Freud based the remainder of his life on this formula, bravely preparing himself for death by using to
advantage his ability whenever possible in the service of
his teachings. Of course, he knew well enough that his
days were numbered, but like Heine, he showed in suffering all his greatness of character. If he had initially
withdrawn from all activity during the first moments
of shock, so he now tried to take over in person the
leadership of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society and
when this attempt failed, he directed it at the very least
out of his own home as he did the agenda of the International Association. Also as a teacher, he contributed
whatever he still had to contribute. Nothing more in
the way of groundbreakingthat his illness would not
permitbut he certainly perfected and finalized older
thoughts, such as The Passing of the Oedipus Complex [1924], The Economic Problem in Masochism
[1924], Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes [1925], Humour [1928], Fetishism [1927], as well as larger works
such as Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety [1926] and
The Question of Lay Analysis [1926]. And finally, The
Future of an Illusion [1927]. All of these works, written
in a classic popular style, developed the whole underlying structure of psychoanalysis.
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Feeling too weak to preside over meetings on a faraway street until some time around midnight, he now
returned to the beginnings of his teaching activity and
invited old and new students to his own home. Once a
month, they met to present their latest ideas and what
was even more important for them, to hear the opinion
of the master himself and to listen to his wisdom and
experience. If they were lucky and he was in a good
spirits, then they could imagine they had the young
Freud in front of them. He had managed to make his
method of teaching be even more direct than in earlier
years. Back in the old days, it was the custom to first let
the speaker finish followed then by the voices of the
critics, the sequence of which actually determined the
fate of the speaker. But now the Professor thought it
would serve his cause better if henaturally only he
himselfraised objections on the spot as they occurred
to him. For example, one of the younger members of
the Society had come up with his own technique and
wanted to convert the others to it. He believed that one
must first, before going back to search for original
causes and associations, merely tease out the resistance
of the patient and immediately control it. Here the old
practitioner balked and when the speaker began to tell
how he had come upon his method, the master interrupted him: Oh, I see. Previously you paid too little
attention to resistance and then you became smarter
through mistakes and now you have gone to the other
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extreme. Among the guests was Princess [Marie] Bonaparte of Greece [18821962], one of Freuds students,
who was listening intently. To her the Professor now
turned with a kindly smile, I believe that one has to
attack the enemy where one encounters him. What do
you think about that, Princess?
How delightfully Freud could converse when he
was having one of his good evenings. He would begin
to draw from his memories, weave in a joke here and
a deep insight there, and enthrall the audience into
deeply respectful admiration by means of the most
charming manner. He would quote from his favorite
poet Nestroy, for example, the following words: It is a
cross to bear for people! All the world complains about
the bad weather and no one does anything about it!
Or he would vent his anger on the different garbagemovements derived from his teachings, painting a
startling picture. These offshoot movements appeared
to him as if dogs had jumped on a table on which a
magnificent meal had been prepared. Each dog dragged
off a bone from there and ran with it into another corner of the room. Now and then, he could almost be
truly humorous. On those occasions, he played with
things and by this means produced a new fascinating
effect.
I remember one evening where the topic of neurotic actual-conflict was the subject of debate. After the
initial speaker had presented her opening remarks,
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basically no one had anything more to say. However, to

get a conversation going, a member seized upon the
word actual-conflict and led astray by sound associations, began to talk and play around with actual neuroses which was eagerly picked up by the others. The
battle over these new spoils of war raged back and forth
for some time until finally the Professor interrupted:
This reminds me of a silly anecdote, but one that fits
the occasion quite well. A candidate was supposed to
be examined in zoology, but he, however, had only
learned about the elephant. Unfortunately, he was
asked about the hyena, and he began thus: The hyena
is an ugly, a disgusting animal, but how handsome, on
the other hand, is the elephant! There are two types of
elephant: the African and the Indian. And thus he
started off and tied everything up neatly in a ball of
string all that he had learned. Now permit me to say a
few words on the topic. (This reminds me of another
charming anecdote, one about the late neurologist,
Professor Moritz Benedikt [18351920], who was for a
long time the leader of the democratic party in Vienna.
This professor was asked by a doctor to come to the
bed of a patient with a hopeless spinal cord injury for a
consultation. After examining the patient, Benedikt
went back to the doctor and said to him, Dear colleague, there is nothing more we can do to help the patient, but wouldnt you like to become a member of the
central union of the democratic party?)
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Then came a few sentences from his enormous experience that were worth more than the entire previous
discussion. Again, I felt myself transported back to the
classical age of psychoanalysis where one came just simply for one single illumination from the master to carry
home as a life-long treasure.
It should not be kept secret here that there were
days on which the master just sat there, tired and
broken. This was usually shortly before the beginning
of his summer holiday, a decline in the routine. Then
he would speak very little, and, if need be, even breaking up the meeting somewhat early. At other times, he
was at his peak, at least for a little while. However, even
on his bad days, he was impressive through the combination of his personage and teachings. If, for instance,
one of the students had gone too far in his lecture, and
had according to his own course of development expanded on the Professors teachings, then the master
would refute him with a single sentence. Or if that student finally after a longer digression managed to say
something with passion that Freud had already said
twenty years before, only very much more clearly, he
would say to the student good-naturedly and ironically: I am sure I have read that somewhere before.
In order to prevent any legends or erroneous impressions from developing, I want to expressly state
something that all those present at those last evenings
would confirm, that Freud never recanted his teachings
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in the least. He explicitly held fast to some of his oldest

views such as the cause of neurasthenia and anxiety
neurosis, as well as the formation of both these types of
illness. As far as individual points that he had outgrown
were concerned, he corrected them himself in later
publications, so no one can claim that he was unfaithful to his original opinions outside of those he corrected himself.
Here and there, Freud experienced in his homeland
some small satisfaction, but not anything from the university or the government, both of which took no notice of the genius in their midst, acts of remarkable consistency. Nor did he receive the Nobel prize. One can
see how things go in medicine, not just in psychiatry.
One man is a genius and achieves immortality but another receives the Nobel prize. So nature compensates
for the dissimilarity of their contributions. In contrast,
strangely enough, the city council of Vienna, led and
governed by the social democratic party, paid some attention. On his seventieth birthday, Freud was granted
as a special honor, the same as an assistant chairman
would have received, namely, the simple right of citizenship of the city. But, of course, the council assumed
that the Professor would hardly make much use of the
benefits associated with the honor. At the same time,
however, the council turned over twenty-one official
consulting positions to Comrade Alfred Adler. When,
however, several comrades, attracted by Freuds genius,
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had later joined our circle, they arranged to have a notall-that-large grassy plot given to our Society, a space
the council did not know what to do with. It was not
exactly ideally located, between the city jail, a future
police barracks, and the flea market (the Viennese
second-hand goods hall). In addition, instead of granting a yearly subvention for the hundreds of citizens
treated free of charge, the city, in all kinds of limiting
clauses and restrictions, charged an annual licensing
fee. Nevertheless, it was a piece of property on which
one could build a proper home for psychoanalytic
researchwith ones own money. (When Freud was
told about the transfer of this piece of property in the
Bergasse, he replied ironically: For a mountain expedition we thus already have the naked knee.)
In the winter before last, Freud had already significantly reduced the number of meetings at his home.
Partly a prevailing flu epidemic, partly a cold gave him
occasion to decline all further invitations. At one of
the few gatherings, he once spoke of how much life had
lost its charm for him: in speaking, he was severely
handicapped, eating and drinking he could enjoy only
a little, and what was the worst of all, he had to almost
completely give up his much beloved smoking. And
then since his severe illness had so debilitated him, it
made him unable to serve his discipline as he had in
earlier years. He was, furthermore, occupied mainly
with caring for his large family with whom he was still
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pleased to practice psychoanalysis for many hours

daily. In a posthumous poem by Goethe, I read a verse
that seemed to me to be aimed at Freud:
The gods, the infinite ones,
Give to their favorites, everything,
All the joys, the infinite ones
All the pains, the infinite oneseverything!
u
In the holy city of Jerusalem sat old Ram-Bam, Rabbi
Moses ben Maimon, on a high chair in the large school
in front of a circle of many hundreds of students who
were listening to his wisdom. (This saints legend I related to Elise Orzeszkowa [18421910] including the
historical error that Ram-Bam had lived and worked in
Jerusalem.) And when he finished speaking, his best
student, Rabbi Jehuda stood up: One thing in the
Bible I dont understand. Perhaps you could explain
it to me. Who were the angels our forefather Jacob
dreamed of, who climbed up on a ladder to heaven and
then returned to earth [Genesis 28:12]? Rabbi Moses
thought a long time, but then the answer flowed from
his lips: These angels are great men, they are accomplished and wise, that is, they climb always higher. It
becomes hard for them, but yet they manage to succeed
in climbing ever higher because they possess great
strength and desire. They will reach a place where they
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will find enlightenment and perfection. And whether

they are called prophets, wise men, or men of great
spirit, they are all angels that climb the ladder to Gods
heaven. So spoke Rabbi Moses. But Rabbi Jehuda was
still not satisfied and he asked further: Why do they
go up and then come down again? If they are striving to
reach the top, why dont they stay there instead of coming back down to earth? Ram-Bam then shook his
white hair like the mane of a lion, If they stayed up
and never returned, they would be humans and not
angels! Up above, they acquire gentleness and enlightenment and then they climb down in order to disseminate these treasures on earth. And the ground on which
they disperse their seed produces better grain. From it
sprouts no more discord, but peace instead, and people
weep less and rejoice more. That is why they like to
come back to earth, as hard as it is for them, and that is
why, Rabbi Jehuda, that is why they are angels!
That is why they are angels! Such an angel was
also Sigmund Freud who sowed the seed of a new idea
so that men would become happier. And the teachings
which he presented for the first time in 1893 and which
he devoted the whole rest of his life to always further
amplifying and refining, these teachings have proven to
be incredibly enlightening. Darwinism attained a similar, fruitful influence in the last century of humanity
but by no means to such a large degree. Originally
created as a method for curing neuroses, psychoanalysis
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has become, above all, the first true psychiatry for the
healthy as well as for the ill human, and it has spread in
many directions to solve questions, riddles, and problems against which many generations of researchers
have painfully butted their heads in vain. At the present
time, there is no field in the humanities that, for better
or worse, does not refer to Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. One may find fault with many individual aspects, and to be sure, no teaching is built for eternity.
There is also no doubt that if its creator had not become so ill, he himself might have modified many
things. But in spite of all imperfections and incompleteness, how powerfully his new teaching has taken
hold and towered over all conventional knowledge!
Ibsens enemy of the people [1882], Dr. Stockmann, claims in his great speech, A normal constituted truth lives, let us say, as a rule, seventeen or eighteen, or at most twenty years; seldom longer. But truths
as aged as that are always worn frightfully thin, and
nevertheless it is only then that the majority recognizes
them and recommends them to the community as
wholesome moral nourishment. The fate of Freudian
teachings was substantially different. They took almost
twice as long to develop, were not recognized by the
majority, much less recommended. But for that reason,
they are alive and remain as fresh as they were at their
beginnings, and will be for decades, in all probability,
the basis of psychiatry and the science of mankind. It is
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a dangerous thing about which to prophesy, but in

spite of that, I will dare to make the claim that not one
hundred, perhaps not fifty, years will pass after the
death of Freud and posterity will place him amongst
the ranks of Newton and Copernicus. What was small
and mortal of him and his teachings will have disappeared without a trace. What will remain, however, is
an infinite gain in the understanding of mankind.

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