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In this important work Decker states her theme clearly: Freud, his biographer Ernest Jones, and other psychoanalysts have greatly exaggerated the opposition from 1893 to 1907 to Freud's psychoanalytic publications. Going back to original reviews and commentaries, some never before examined, the author convincingly demonstrates that there was nothing approaching a monolithic rejection of psychoanalysis. As with most new theories the reaction of critics was mixed. Some found in Freud's work revolutionary discoveries, others found points they agreed with and ideas they rejected, and a third group, by no means the largest, found nothing at all worthwhile.
Freud's publications attracted the most interest from psychotherapeutic practitioners and the least from psychologists. The Wundtian psychology of consciousness and the conviction that mental normality and abnormality were absolutely distinct conditions put Freud's work outside the domain of turn of the century psychologists in Germany. Within psychiatric and psychotherapeutic circles early psychoanalytic formulations were routinely reviewed. Most medical reviewers found Freud's work ingenious, important, and well-written; it was neither widely proclaimed as revolutionary nor widely condemned for focusing on dreams, sex and the unconscious. In general non-technical popular publications responded very positively to Freud's work on dreams. Commentators on Freud, with the notable exceptions of Hellpach and Adler, understood what Freud was saying and wrote well reasoned reviews of it.
Decker sees both Bleuler's and Jung's early positive reviews of Freud's work as vital in gaining wider acceptance for psychoanalysis. The Burghölzli was an influential hospital,