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Although the author modestly asks the reader to consider this brief book not as an historical study but merely as an eyewitness report, the contribution it makes to psychoanalysis is significant. The book's main focus is on the years 1924-1938 in Vienna, during which Sterba became a psychoanalyst and involved himself deeply in the activities of the Viennese psychoanalytic community. Those years also coincide with the final and profoundly significant phase
in Freud's life and scientific productivity, as well as the last stage of the psychoanalytic movement in Vienna, birthplace and center of psychoanalysis until its dissolution by the Nazis in 1938.
Sterba writes: “My main goal is to make it possible for the reader to participate in the atmosphere, the spirit, and the ardent excitement that the direct or indirect contact with Freud stirred in our group.” The author's goal is realized. Written in an easy narrative style, Sterba's account of his experiences, observations and personal opinions is marked by candor and spontaneity, and informed by an acute observing ego.
Richard Sterba was born in Vienna on May 6th, 1898, on the same day that Freud turned 42 years old. Like Freud, Sterba attended the Gymnasium, the elite institution for boys, where he acquired a strong grounding in the humanities. In 1916, while in military service in the First World War, he met Victor, the son of Alfred Adler, who introduced him to the writings of Freud, thus sparking his abiding interest in psychoanalysis.
In 1924, the year in which the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute started functioning officially under the direction of Helene Deutsch, Sterba started his training analysis with Edward Hitschmann. His analysis, however, was not as decisive an influence on his training as was his work with Wilhelm Reich and Helene Deutsch. Sterba had attended Reich's biweekly seminars on technique, which after the establishment of the Institute became continuous case presentation seminars. Reich possessed a