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The appearance, after a lapse of ten years, of the first English translation of Hemmung, Symptom u. Angst affords a tempting opportunity to re-assess the significance of this remarkable book. For there is no question that the book is a remarkable one. It contains some of the most important of Freud's later contributions to psycho-analytical theory; it provides an outstanding illustration of his capacity to revise his own theory whenever he feels that the facts warrant revision; and it is without doubt the most disjointed presentation ever published by one who has so often proved himself a master of orderly exposition.
One of the circumstances contributing to this disorder is not so extenuating now as it seemed at the time. Two years before, one of Freud's favourite pupils had signalized his coming defection from psycho-analysis by publishing a book on the Trauma of Birth, the argument of which—if widely accepted—would have arrested the growth of that science. Interestingly enough, Rank's theory was, in fact, hastily swallowed by a number of analysts whose enthusiasm and sense of prestige had outrun their scientific discretion. [On the publication of Hemmung they surreptitiously disgorged the forbidden fruit.] Freud, more cautiously and temperately took the whole problem to avizandum, and produced a book which served the double purpose of refuting Rank's views and advancing a new theory of anxiety. We now know that the first of these aims was scarcely worth the trouble. In earlier times the defection of any important adherent was a serious matter, but by 1926 psycho-analysis had reached the stage when it could weather any defection. Indeed, it is interesting to reflect that had the Jung and Adler schisms occurred about the same time, the Zurich school would not have come to figure quite so prominently in the public eye as it does, and the Adlerian system would, in all probability, have been stillborn.
But even if Rank had never produced the birth-trauma theory