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PARTISAN REVIEW
America's populist ambiance, however, differed remarkably from its
Viennese counterpart. Whereas the new world was exeedingly open, even
searching for new ideas to put into practice, the old one was resistant to
change. Freud's psychoanalysis, the artistic output by
Jung Wien
and by the
Secession, at least to some extent, were manifestations of revolts against
aristocratic traditions-which the rest of the Viennese either secretly
aspired to or visibly spurned. Their innovative achievements, when import–
ed to America, fell on populist eyes and ears: America had no tradition to
speak of, and not much discrimination. Thus it is not surprising that when
psychoanalysis did arrive in America, and eventually took root, it too was
being popularized rather than explored, adapted by mind healers and reli–
gious psychotherapists such as the Reverend Elwood Worcester, who
founded the Emmanuel movement.
I will not get into how psychoanalysis was received the first time
around, in the 1910s and 1920s, or the second time, when after the arrival
of the European emigres in the late 1930s and early 1940s it became estab–
lished, even entrenched, except to say, that during World War II it was
bolstered by the American government-which funded much research
that enabled psychoanalysts to study the psychological roots of group
behavior, of individual leadership potential, of the psychic mechanisms
fueling Hitler's and other enemies' behavior, and of German character
structure. In the process, emigre analysts worked wi th physicians in hop–
si tals and medical schools, taught many of them about psychoanalysis
while, simultanously, being brought around to following ever more close–
ly the more instrumental, scientific methods of American psychiatry.
The psychoanalysts' growing reputation, in turn, brought them to the
attention of the media, and of the public. As more people, and especially
intellectuals, were being analyzed, 'as Freudians were being featured by the
media and poked fun at in movies, they gained in acceptance. In books by
Erich Fromm and Karen Horney, that focused on "the art of loving," "the
fear of freedom," and on "the neurotic personality," the growing post-war
American middle classes both recognized something of themselves in these
portraits, and were unaware of the pain that might ensue when facing true
recognition. Psychoanalysis, though rendering many people uneasy, never–
theless was potentially available to everyone. By the time Theodor Reik
published
Listening with the Third Ear,
in 1948, the disagreements among
Freud's disciples-over issues of meta-philosophical and cultural priori–
ties, candidates' training and clinical practice, and especially over whom to
allow into the American and International Asssociations-could not be
resolved. Reik, it seems to me, had his third ear cocked also to the culture:
he, as well as a few others, decided to initiate non-physicians, thereby sid–
ing with Freud and against what soon became known as "the Freudian
