Freud As Leader: The Early Years Of The Viennese Society

The author argues that Freud's leadership of the Viennese reveals continual tension between Freud's need to use the group to develop and promote his own ideas and the need of the group to promote the professional aspirations of its members while maintaining Freud's allegiance. Freud's ‘valency’ for the role of ‘fight leader’, in Bion's terms, made him vulnerable to a solution to this dilemma, which both he and his Viennese followers constructed: an unconscious pact in which they sought and rooted out the ‘enemies’ within the movement, that is, those followers of Freud who by questioning his basic concept of childhood sexuality would lend support to the external ‘enemies’ of psychoanalysis. What was accomplished by this solution was the Society's continuing dependence upon Freud, who felt forced to assume the role of President, against his own wishes, in order to maintain continual vigilance against the internal ‘enemies’ of psychoanalysis. In this way the Society captured Freud. For his part, Freud gained the continued loyalty of the group through this arrangement. What was lost with this solution, however, was a certain vitality in the Society as it was forced to give up some of the challenging new ideas of its members in order to hold on to Freud as well as avoid the risk of producing a new ‘enemy’.