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The author traces factors which renders the history of psychoanalysis difficult to explicate: gaps in the historical sources such as incomplete publications of Freud's correspondence, lacking material from the patient's viewpoint and from other members of the organisation. Available sources have been selectively used, so that Freud's writing has been dissociated from the history of the movement.
Some of the items outlined and discussed by the author in an overview of the history are the following: The transition from an early aim of capturing “true causes” to a more restricted “applied psychology”. The interruption through the first World War and the splitting up of “the Movement” in national versions. The attempt to incorporate psychoanalysis as “German psychology” during Hitler's regime—with great success in the German army shortly before the war. The apaption in Italy of psychoanalysis to a conservative and authoritarian catholicism during the same era. The change of language from German to English after the war.
The paper concludes in a discussion of the question about what is specific to psychoanalysis in view of diverse attempts to “return to the origins”. The tendency of these attempts to take the form of “religious brotherhoods” are pointed out. The necessity to put psychoanalysis into its historical and cultural context is stressed—not least its relation to the holy writings.