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One of the earliest translations of Freud in Greek, his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, published around 1920 in Athens, was introduced with the following typical-for-the-times remarks:
A book like this, appearing here in a public edition before the War, would have provoked at least horror. Nowadays, however, the spread of psychic research has changed things. A book like this, putting many things in their place, is invaluable, especially for physicians, educators, judges, teachers, psychologists, and even biologists. And there is no danger that the present book will be considered disgusting, immoral or repulsive. Freud's great fame guarantees its acceptance.
Freud and psychoanalysis were known and discussed seriously by at least one group of Greek professionals, the progressive association of educationists known as "Ekpaedeutikos Omilos," since 1915, when Manolis Triantaphyllidis, a leading member of the group, presented them with his paper, "The Beginning of Language and Freudian Psychology." He and his associates were interested mainly in the application of psychoanalysis to education. In fact, some of them developed a liking for Adler. Psychoanalysis also attracted the attention of university students and avant-garde intellectuals, competing as an ideology with Marxism. The few clinicians who espoused its principles were at the time outside of official medicine, which, like the rest of the academic world, reacted to the new science with skepticism or outright hostility.
It was only after World War II that psychoanalysis began to acquire some respect among Greek psychiatrists and members