EDITH KURZWEIL
43
work through. After they and their countrymen saw the television film
Holocaust,
however, many of these Freudians were aware that they had to
deal with still more guilt and on a daily basis. Furthermore, they realized that
they would have to look more diligently for its traces in their patients and for
these patients' transferences of Nazi memories onto themselves. In fact, the
Holocaust became more central in philosophical and literary investigations as
well, and German classical works and authors increasingly were being inter–
preted in relation to it. Even friendships with Jewish individuals started to be
examined as expressions of philo-Semitism, as possible reaction formations to
anti-Semitism.
On the other hand, the reimbursement policies for psychoanalytic ther–
apy mandated by the German government have been functioning as a be–
nign
big brother. It is difficult to convey the flavor of this influence, except by
comparison: in America and France many possibilities for reimbursement
exist, but they have not become as organized as in Germany - though not
for want of trying. When reading the many massive and relevant documents,
I kept tllinking that only Max Weber could have provided us with the model
for the ideal type or bureaucracy, since he lived as it was being constructed.
At its roots, of course, are the egalitarian principles psychoanalysts on the
"right" take for granted. Those on the "left," however, have wanted
to
ex–
tend these principles while at the same time denouncing the bureaucrats who
must implement them: they are in charge of egalitarianism. But even if they
were able to live up to the Weberian ideal, they also represent the dominant
social class of the
Sozia/slaal.
This paradox is magnified by the realistic fear that a strong state, if led
by
any sort of right-winger, might easily turn into another fascist one. In that
sense, German analysts take the critical stance of the Frankfurt School, and
they heed Marcuse's admonitions that "the politics of mass society begin at
home, with the shrinking of the ego and its subjection to the collective ideal ..
. which may well mean - to live in refusal and opposition to the Establish–
ment." So, while "rightist" Freudians assume that well-analyzed individuals
will
be
autonomous and able to resist undue pressures, their colleagues on the
"left," in line with Freud's
Group
Psychology and the Analysis oj the Ego,
as–
sume that in mass society conscience, responsibility, and ego-ideal are always
projected onto a leader or a government, so that individual autonomy must
be
actively fought for.
Inevitably, in Germany the "rightist" Freudians have focused more on
clinical questions, and the "leftists" have addressed more social and political
ones. Even who may seek a psychoanalysis, for example, has become a po–
litical question when taxpayers underwrite the treatment. In fact, Johannes
Cremerius, Hoffmann, and Trimborn (1979) recalled that Freud had stated
