You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
When Hitler took over Germany, the physicians who found refuge here in America were bound to affect our current psychiatric practices. More than any other specialty of medicine, our psychiatric hospitals were suffering from a shortage of staff, not only quantitatively but qualitatively. Our top men here, never lacking in ability or heart, welcomed the revolution brought in by the refugees, whose presence restored professionalism to the lower echelons and whose methods assumed a relationship between practice and theory. Strongly characteristic of these refugee traits was Frieda Fromm-Reichmann.
Fromm-Reichmann's added contribution was specific and peculiar to her, as all readers of this book will immediately and gratefully recognize. Her experiences in the treatment of schizophrenics had convinced her, contrary to an early formulation of Freud's, that her patients were capable of transferences and that therefore they could be successfully treated. Freud redefined his views on secondary narcissism in 1926, but it took many years before his newer concept was correlated into clinical practice. Fromm-Reichmann was a convincing demonstrator of this change. Standing almost alone in the American field at that time, the balance she held between her results and her reasons, between practice and theory, appealed equally to beginners and to those who shared her goal while using techniques other than hers.