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The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement
The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement Author:Sigmund Freud Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill " Cut it short I On doomsday 'twon't be worth a farthing! " Goethe. Two years after the first congress the second private congress of psychoanalyst... more »s took place at Nuremberg, March, 1910. During the interval, whilst I was still under the impression of the favorable reception in America, the growing hostility in Germany and the unexpected support through the acquisition of the Zurich School, I had conceived a project which I was able to carry out, at this second congress, with the help of my friend S. Ferenczi. I had in mind to organize the psychoanalytic movement, to transfer its center to Zurich, and place it under a head who would take care of its future. As this found much opposition among the adherents of psychoanalysis, I will explain my motives more fully. Thus I hope to justify myself, even if it turns out that my action was not a very wise one. I judged that the association with Vienna was no recommendation, but rather an obstacle for the new movement. A place like Zurich, in the heart of Europe, where an academic teacher had opened his institution to psychoanalysis, seemed to me much more promising. Moreover, I assumed that my own person was a second obstacle. The estimate put upon my personality was utterly confused by the favor or dislike from different factions. I was either compared to Darwin and Kepler or reviled as a paralytic. I, therefore, desired to push into the background not only the city whence psychoanalysis emanated, but also my own personality. Furthermore, I was no longer young, I saw a long road before me and I felt oppressed by the idea that it had fallen to my lot to become a leader in my advanced age. Yet I felt that there must be a leader. I knew only too well what mistakes lay in wait for him who would undertake the practice of psych...« less