The history of the psychoanalytic movement — John Shaqi
The history of the psychoanalytic movementFreud, Sigmund
History
The history of the psychoanalytic movement
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis -- History
The most noteworthy personal relationship which resulted at Worcester,
was that established with James J. Putnam, teacher of neuropathology at
Harvard University. For years he had expressed a disparaging opinion of
psychoanalysis, but now he befriended it and recommended it to his
countrymen and his colleagues in numerous lectures, rich in content and
fine of form. The respect which he enjoys in America, owing to his
character, his high moral standard and his keen love for truth, was very
helpful to the cause of psychoanalysis and protected it against the
denunciations to which it might otherwise have early succumbed. Yielding
too much to the great ethical and philosophic bent of his nature Putnam
later required of psychoanalysis what, to me, seems an impossible
demand. He wished that it should be pressed into the service of a
certain moral philosophical conception of the universe; but Putnam has
remained the chief prop of the psychoanalytic movement in his native
land.
For the diffusion of this movement Brill and Jones deserve the greatest
credit. With a self-denying industry they constantly brought under the
notice of their countrymen, through their works, the easily observable
fundamental principles of psychoanalysis of everyday life, of the dream
and of the neuroses. Brill has strengthened these influences by his
medical activities and his translations of my writings: Jones, by
illuminating lectures and clever discussions at the American
Congresses.[7] The lack of a rooted scientific tradition and the lesser
rigidity of official authority have been of decided advantage to the
impetus given to psychoanalysis in America by Stanley Hall. It was
characteristic there from the beginning that professors, heads of insane
asylums, as well as independent practitioners, all showed themselves
equally interested in psychoanalysis. But just for this very reason it
is clear that the fight for psychoanalysis must be fought to a decisive
end, where the greater resistance has been met with, namely, in the
countries of the old cultural centers.
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