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Fritz Schmidl was a highly educated man from a Viennese background with a passionate love for philosophy. His mother had consulted Sigmund Freud for her depression; his father was a lifelong patient of Joseph Breuer; and he himself was analyzed by Willy Hoffer. His political comrades were S. Bernfeld and O. Fenichel. A grant by Bertha Pappenheim (“Frl. Anna O.”) made an excellent education possible after the early death of both parents. In other words, he came close to being an analyst by birth and tradition.
This book is well written, which facilitates reading for the analytic practitioner, but fullest attention to the text is needed at all times. The title is perfect, since all the essays deal with psychoanalysis and philosophy: analysis of method and process, the validation of interpretation, psychoanalysis as a science. It is a science all right, but a psychological one, and as such different from natural science, since it deals with meaning and symbols, and motivation, as distinct from causation. To realize that the author is an expert in both fields — philosophy and psychoanalysis — helps the clarity and free flow of the presentation.
There are also lighter chapters, for instance, the chapter on Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Binswanger, the student of the existentialist Heidegger. The essays on the philosophy of psychoanalysis and of existential analysis, like the essay about sociology, were probably written 30 years ago, but they still read as freshly, informatively, and clearly as if written yesterday. It is regrettable that none of the essays, all published previously in psychoanalytic journals, is properly referred to or dated.
The introduction is by Edith Buxbaum, the widow of Fritz Schmidl. It is written with great love, understanding and knowledge. A marvelous picture is given of the man and his life in Vienna, his study of psychoanalysis in coffeehouses and of philosophy in universities, and finally his immigration, new start, and life in this country. Edith B