The history of the psychoanalytic movementFreud, Sigmund
History
The history of the psychoanalytic movement
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis -- History
Psychoanalysis has found as its first task the explanation of the
neuroses; it has taken the two facts of resistance and transference as
starting points, and by bearing in mind the third fact of amnesia in the
theories of repression, it has given justification to the sexual motive
forces of the neuroses and of the unconscious. Psychoanalysis has never
claimed to give a perfect theory of the human psychic life, but has only
demanded that its discoveries should be used for the completion and
correction of knowledge we have gained elsewhere. But Alfred Adler’s
theory goes far beyond this goal. It pretends to explain with one stroke
the behavior and character of men as well as their neurotic and
psychotic maladies. As a matter of fact, Adler’s theory is more adequate
to any other field than to that of the neuroses, which he still puts in
the first place because of the history of its origin. I had the
opportunity of studying Dr. Adler many years and have never denied him
the testimonial of having a superior mind, especially endowed
speculatively. As proof of the “persecution” which he claims to have
suffered at my hands, I can only say that after the formation of the
Association I handed over to him the leadership of the Vienna group. It
was only after urgent requests from all the members of the society that
I could be prevailed upon to resume the presidency at the scientific
proceedings. When I had recognized Dr. Adler’s slight talent for the
estimation of the unconscious material, I expected that he would know
how to discover the connections between psychoanalysis and psychology
and the biological bases of the impulses, a discovery to which he was
entitled, in a certain sense, through his valuable studies about the
inferiority of organs. He really did bring out some thing, but his work
makes the impression as if—to speak in his own jargon—it were intended
to prove that psychoanalysis was wrong in everything and that the
significance of the sexual impelling forces could only be due to
gullibility about the assertions of neurotics. Of the personal motive of
his work I may also speak publicly, since he himself revealed it in the
presence of a small circle of members of the Vienna group. “Do you
believe,” he remarked, “that it is such a great pleasure for me to stand
in your shadow my whole life?” To be sure I see nothing objectionable in
the fact that a younger man should frankly admit an ambition which one
might, in any case, suspect as one of the incentives of his work. But
even under the domination of such a motive a man should know how to
avoid being “unfair” as designated by the English with their fine social
tact. We Germans have only a much coarser word at our disposal to convey
this idea. How little Adler has succeeded in not being unfair is shown
by the great number of mean outbursts of anger which distort his
writings, and by the feeling of an ungovernable mania for priority which
pervades his work.
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