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In February, 1920, the Berlin Polyclinic was opened. It owed its inception to the memorable words of Freud, in which he insisted on the necessity for public centres which would extend the opportunities of psycho-analytic treatment to larger sections of the population. Stimulated by the example of the Berlin Polyclinic, I resolved to establish a similar Institute in Vienna.
In planning this I had in mind not only the social benefit which such a clinic would represent and the opportunity it would provide for training psycho-analysts: my intention was also and above all to erect a token to our theory, which was as yet all too little known and too bitterly opposed in Vienna.
In consequence of the World War there was at that time a great increase in the cost of living, the value of the currency had fallen, private benefaction was crippled and the Government was forced to economize. But the military authorities had a considerable number of premises to spare and there was a plan of using certain of these, formerly part of the Garrison Hospital No. 1, for an extension of the General Hospital. Here, in this medical centre, was obviously the ideal place for a Psycho-Analytical Clinic, and I found a helpful and energetic adviser in the eminent radiologist, Professor Guido Holzknecht, a man of universal sympathies, who was interested in psycho-analysis. I drew up an application to the Council of the Medical Staff of the General Hospital, in which Holzknecht had a vote, and on July 1, 1920, a corresponding petition was presented to the State Public Health Department.
It proved a difficult matter for psycho-analysis, which was evidently almost unknown to many of the physicians at the Hospital, to set the official wheels in motion; the Medical Council asked for an opinion from Professor Wagner-Jauregg, the Director of the Vienna Psychiatric Clinic, but it was July, 1921, before his verdict was given.
It was unfavourable and based the rejection of our application on the following