EDITH KURZWEIL
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'unconscious representation of Fliess changed over the course of the
self-analysis; that he achieved a "creative resolution" after he went
through what so far has been called his "creative illness," and that
"Freud's self-analytic regression was regression in the service of the
ego, a creative regression comparable to maternal regression in the
service of infant care ." All of these points reinforce the theories of
"American ego psychology."
The LA.H .P . was created in order to bridge the differences
among "national" approaches to psychoanalysis, to overcome them
through exposure. Therefore, psychoanalytic historians also have
been eagerly exploring the contributions by "local" and less promi–
nent figures . Anna Maria Accerboni, for instance, who organized a
congress in 1985 that established Edoardo Weiss's (and Italy's) loca–
tion within the movement , here elaborated on Weiss's difficult rela–
tionship to his "fathers" - Freud, Paul Federn, and his own. Ignazio
Weiss's death, Accerboni shows , temporarily shook Weiss's equilib–
rium but initiated new insights which gradually distanced him from
Freud and brought him closer to Federn. By revealing that Federn
couldn't separate himself from Freud any more than Weiss had been
able to detach himself from Federn, Weiss's biographer explained
that Federn believed that individuals want to live in a society with a
father whom they can love - because he did .
Paul Federn's son, Ernest Federn , a psychoanalyst, agreed that
his father was an "unremitting admirer" of Freud, ancl> he empha–
sized (with the help of unpublished documents) that he was the only
one of Freud's disciples to have remained close to him, personally
and professionally , for thirty-five years . This point , of course , is a
slap at those who have argued that Freud distanced himself from
all
his disciples. That Paul Federn's importance has been underplayed
is yet another slap at American ego psychologists who considered
him more or less deviant and outside their orbit.
Livia Nemes, who at the 1987 Paris meeting of the LA.H.P.
commented on the ups and downs of psychoanalysis in Hungary in
the 1940s, this time (with Patrizia Giampieri) recalled a "forgotten"
speech Freud gave late in 1918 at Budapest University which led its
medical students to expect the inclusion of psychoanalysis in their
curriculum. As the transcript of the speech underwent translations
and retranslations , this fact apparently was omitted , but Nemes and
Giampieri found a petition to the Minister of Education - which was
rejected. As to the transcript itself, Nemes noted, no original has
