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Contrary to what many believe, the varieties of “classical” analysis are almost endless. Beyond a few main points of agreement, such as putting the patient on the couch (even that is not invariable) and having him free associate (not too clearly defined) there is wide latitude among practitioners. Anna Freud has pointed out that in the technical seminars in Vienna in the 1920's when beginning therapists were asked to present their cases, they began the first few sessions in similar ways, then drifted off very quickly into their own individual styles. Glover in his survey of the British Psychoanalytic Association in 1938 has documented in his book on technique the many divergencies found even among a group as closely knit as the British was at that time (almost all had been analyzed by Ernest Jones). And the notorious survey of the American Psychoanalytic Association came to an ill-fated end after the expenditure of much time and huge sums of money because it could not cope statistically with the enormous variations in style among the members.
Primarily this state of affairs can be traced to the influence of Freud on the history of psychoanalytic thought. All analysis today is character analysis. Yet Freud, who laid the foundations for it, practiced symptom analysis most of his life. When he had a chance to