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At the Psychoanalytic Congress in the Hague in 1920, Freud suggested that the “Committee of the Six Ringholders” (the men he trusted most) keep in communication with each other by means of a circular letter—a Rundbrief—which all would see and to which all could contribute. The committee, originally intended to serve as a kind of spiritual bodyguard around the Professor and to protect him against disappointment, fulfilled this function admirably for a number of years, but the members were scattered from Budapest, Berlin, and London to Vienna.
The ideas to be exchanged in these Rundbriefe had to do with psychoanalysis as an organization, movement, or cause, rather than as a science or philosophy, and the correspondence resembles more than anything else the present-day news bulletins of our psychoanalytic societies. The letters are reminiscent of the interoffice memos exchanged informally between executives of a world-wide organization, or of telephone conversations between members of a board of directors. Some of the letters are important, but the average Rundbrief was concerned primarily with questions of administration, organization, laws, and bylaws, the payment and nonpayment of dues, the organization of training programs, evening meetings, and annual congresses. Scientific discussion appears only in connection with preparation for congresses.
The Committee of the Ringholders consisted of Sigmund Freud, who