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In his life as a psycho-analyst, Franz Alexander had a ring-side seat for observing the great revolution in human culture which has taken place in recent times. He states quite clearly in his preface that he will use his own life-story of the seventy years since
his birth (1891) as an illustration of this revolution and of the background out of which these cultural changes developed. His Eyewitness Story illustrates the phenomenon of psychological growth and the emergence of an integrated self, which has a sense of continuity and identity. It shows that this growth toward an integrated self is more difficult in our turbulent era, and is becoming a central issue of our times.
According to Alexander, science is the form of human activity that advances fastest. It is less influenced by social events, but its influence on social life is revolutionary. We have seen more radical changes in the last fifty years than in the previous three hundred. Most of these changes are results of the application of science to technique.
Franz Alexander was born in Budapest and, fatefully enough, his father's house was called 'The New York Palace'. His childhood received its direction through humanistic tradition from a father who was a professor at the University. It was a tradition in which knowledge for its own sake was a guiding principle, in a time when the quest for absolute truth and absolute beauty was still believed possible. Our present era can only be understood when we are able to account for the profound ideological changes in the first half of the century from a world of absolutes to the present era of relativity. The search for absolutes in knowledge, taste, and morals was followed by the search for the absolutely best social system.
After some temptation to study archaeology, Alexander moved from Budapest to Göttingen, or rather, perhaps, to the Café National in Göttingen. About that time, father Alexander asked his son to review Freud's book on dream interpreta