Dr. Ernest Jones

A LETTER TO THE NEUE FREIE PRESSE

DR. REIK AND THE PROBLEM OF QUACKERY

(1926)

Dear Sir,

In an article in your issue of July 15 dealing with the case of my pupil, Dr. Theodor Reik, or, more precisely, in a section of it headed ‘Information from Psycho-Analytic Circles’, there is a passage on which I should like to make a few remarks by way of correction.

The passage runs: ‘... during the last few years he has become convinced that Dr. Reik, who has gained a wide reputation from his philosophical and psychological writings, possesses a far greater gift for psycho-analysis than the physicians attached to the Freudian school; and he has entrusted the most difficult cases only to him and to his daughter Anna, who has proved quite specially adept in the difficult technique of psycho-analysis.’

Dr. Reik himself would, I think, be the first to reject any such account of the basis of our relations. It is true, however, that I have availed myself of his skill in particularly difficult cases, but this has only been where the symptoms lay in a sphere far removed from the physical one. And I have never failed to inform a patient that he is not a physician but a psychologist.

My daughter Anna has devoted herself to the pedagogic analysis of children and adolescents. I have never yet referred to her a case of severe neurotic illness in an adult. Incidentally the only case with moderately severe symptoms verging on the psychiatric which she has hitherto treated repaid the physician who referred it to her by its complete success.

I take the opportunity of informing you that I have just sent to press a small work on The Question of Lay Analysis. In it I have tried to show what a psycho-analysis is and what demands it makes on the analyst. I have considered the far from simple relations between psycho-analysis and medicine, and have drawn the conclusion that any mechanical application to trained analysts of the section against quackery is open to grave doubts.

Since I have given up my Vienna practice and have cut down my activity to the treatment of a very few foreigners, I trust that this announcement will not involve me too in a prosecution for unprofessional advertisement.

Yours &c.,

Professor Freud9

(ON HIS 50th BIRTHDAY)

(1929)

The first piece of work that it fell to psycho-analysis to perform was the discovery of the instincts that are common to all men wing to-day - and not only to those living to-day but to those of ancient and of prehistoric times. It called for no great effort, therefore, for psycho-analysis to ignore the differences that arise among the inhabitants of the earth owing to the multiplicity of races, languages and countries. From the start it was international, and it is well known that its followers overcame the dividing effects of the Great War sooner than any others.

Among the men who met at Salzburg in the spring of 1908 for the first psycho-analytical congress, a young English physician was prominent, who delivered a short paper on ‘Rationalization in Everyday Life’. The contents of this first-fruit hold good to this day: our young science was enriched by an important concept and an indispensable term.

From that time on Ernest Jones has never rested. First in his post as a professor in Toronto, then as a physician in London, as the founder and teacher of a Branch Society, as director of a Press, as editor of a Journal, and as head of a Training Institute, he has worked tirelessly for psycho-analysis, making its current findings generally known by means of lectures, defending it against the attacks and misunderstandings of its opponents by means of brilliant, severe but fair criticisms, maintaining its difficult position in England against the demands of the ‘profession’ with tact and moderation, and, alongside of all these externally directed activities, accomplishing, in loyal co-operation with the development of psycho-analysis on the Continent, the scientific achievement to which, among other works, his Papers on Psycho-Analysis and Essays in Applied Psycho-Analysis bear witness. Now, in the prime of life, he is not only indisputably the leading figure among English-speaking analysts, but is also recognized as one of the foremost representatives of psycho-analysis as a whole - a mainstay for his friends and, as much as ever, a hope for the future of our science.

Now that the Director of this journal has broken the silence to which he is condemned - or to which he has a right - owing to his age, in order to greet his friend, he may be permitted to conclude - not with a wish, for we do not believe in the omnipotence of thoughts - but with the admission that he cannot think of Ernest Jones, even after his fiftieth birthday, as other than before: zealous and energetic, combative and devoted to the cause.0

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