Psychoanalysis in Medicine*

Psychoanalysis is biologically based and body bound. Historically, its most intimate relationship has been as a medical discipline originating with Freud's intense desire for therapeutic procedures which might prove efficaceous in the treatment of the neuroses. As he stated, “I had only unwillingly taken up the profession of medicine, but I had at that time a strong motive for helping neurotic persons or at least for wishing to understand something about neurotic states. I had already devoted myself to physical therapy and had felt absolutely helpless after the disappointing results I had experienced with Erb's electro-therapy which was so full of detailed indications.”12

The evolution of psychoanalysis from the early cathartic method of Breuer,13 the debt he owed to Liebault and Bernheim,14 Charcot15 and even Janet16 has been clearly indicated in his various writings. It is necessary to re-emphasize this, since a re-interpretation of Freud has led to the accusation that after all Freud and, therefore, psychoanalysis has not been really interested in the treatment of patients.

It is well known that psychoanalysis is both a system of genetic psychology and a therapeutic procedure that is at the same time a precise research instrument. The manifold contributions of applied psychoanalysis to the fields of anthropology, sociology, art, education and comparative religion, etc. need not again be emphasized. It is my intention to discuss the role of psychoanalysis in medicine.

Ferenczi in 1933 in a paper on “Freud's Influence on Medicine” stated that “He (Freud) was able to trace the motor forces behind the psychic life to its biological source and to confirm its analogy with physical driving forces. Leaving practical considerations aside, he did not permit himself to be led astray into denying the multiformity which manifested itself in this, nor did the illusion of a premature system of unification influence him to abandon his ideas which showed gaps, were not fully