Auf eigenem Weg

Freud began his revolutionary work in the solitude of a private lecturer and neurologist. Before World War I, it gained recognition from the Zurich university psychiatrists, subsequently attracting increasing attention from the German professional community and, during the Weimar period, found considerable resonance in the burgeoning field of psychotherapy. The reception of psychoanalytic theory and practice was, as often happens with new ideas, interested, occasionally supportive, but more frequently critical. From a sense of superiority, Freud and his followers refused to engage with the methodological, substantive, and medical-ethical critiques from their colleagues. They followed their own path, establishing their own professional association, specialized training, and theoretical language. From 1933, this independence was dismantled, and it was slowly restored after 1945. The book describes the successes of psychoanalysis on its path of isolation and the difficulties that this journey entailed.