Auf eigenem Weg

Freud began his revolutionary work in the solitude of a private lecturer and neurologist. Before the First World War, it was recognised by the Zurich university psychiatrists, then increasingly attracted the attention of the German professional public, and in the Weimar period it was well received in the burgeoning field of psychotherapy. The reception of psychoanalytic teaching and practice was, as so often when something new emerges, interested, occasionally approving, more often critical. Out of a sense of superiority, Freud and his followers refused to engage with the methodological, substantive and medical-ethical criticism of their colleagues. They went their own way, with their own professional association, professional training and theoretical language. From 1933, their independence was crushed, but slowly restored after 1945. The book describes the successes of psychoanalysis on its path of isolation and the difficulties this path brought with it.