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It is often difficult to find a coherent theme for a conference. Freud in Exile is a collection of papers based on a conference held in London in October 1986, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Freud's arrival on British soil. I had no difficulty with the first part of the book, but became somewhat puzzled as the discussion moved on to questions of aesthetics and problems of translating Freud into English. I eventually realized that Freud and psychoanalysis had become synonymous and that the speakers were pondering the fate of psychoanalysis after it passed out of the hands of its founder.
Regrettably, a small percentage of the papers provide no possible rationale for their inclusion. Moreover, there is no reference to the fact that Britain, the country in which Freud actually settled, has proved the most resistant to psychoanalytic ideas. There is also a tactful silence about the fact that the arrival of Anna Freud precipitated a bitter struggle with Melanie Klein, the most influential figure within the British Psychoanalytic Society. These criticisms having been dealt with, I should like to concentrate on the strengths of this fascinating and impressive volume.
The origins of psychoanalysis as a Jewish Viennese science are brilliantly discussed in Sander Gilman's “Constructing the Image of the Appropriate