Freudian or Neofreudian

With a few notable exceptions—from which may be singled out the Collected Papers of Freud, the Contributions of Abraham, and Ferenczi's and Jones's Papers—volumes of collected and especially selected papers on psychoanalysis are exercises in scientific autobiography, embarked upon when the author is nearing the age of retirement and wishes to put on record the trend of his scientific thought from his professional nonage to the date of publication. Provided his thinking is of more than personal interest, something can be said for the custom; for when nearing the close of his professional career, and analyst should at least be able to indicate to future readers what he thought he was talking about most of the time. Whether his readers will accept his autobiographical valuations is naturally on the lap of the gods—in this case, candidates in the sophomore year of professional training.

Of course, the system has some drawbacks. The author may have already published in book form his most enterprising contributions in various areas of psychoanalysis, so that, however well selected the papers may be, it is impossible to avoid great lacunae in presentation. This is certainly true in the present instance. With a natural aptitude for exposition fostered by upbringing in the metaphysical atmosphere of an academic home in Budapest, Franz Alexander has set his name to a number of treatises which for some time to come will certainly engage the attention of psychoanalysts and often the devoted interest of 'neofreudians' in various branches of the International Association, to say nothing of psychiatrists at large, whose criterion for a good 'neofreudian' is that he should contradict Freud on some vital point or points of theory. Perhaps it would be a good idea if the authors of 'selected' papers interpolated between their various contributions a brief summary of their thinking in the intervening periods; but readers can always make this out for themselves. Candidates are, on