Preface to Max Eitingon's Report on the Berlin Psycho-Analytical Policlinic (March 1920 to June 1922)

My friend Max Eitingon, who created the Berlin Psycho-Analytical Policlinic and has hitherto supported it out of his own resources, has in the following pages made public his reasons for founding it and has also given an account of the Institute's organization and functions. I can only add to what he has written my wish that individuals or societies may be found elsewhere to follow Eitingon's example and bring similar institutions into existence. If psycho-analysis, alongside of its scientific significance, has a value as a therapeutic procedure, if it is capable of giving help to sufferers in their struggle to fulfil the demands of civilization, this help should be accessible as well to the great multitude who are too poor themselves to repay an analyst for his laborious work. This seems to be a social necessity particularly in our times, when the intellectual strata of the population, which are especially prone to neurosis, are sinking irresistibly into poverty.2 Institutes such as the Berlin Policlinic are also alone in a position to overcome the difficulties which otherwise stand in the way of thorough instruction in psycho-analysis. They make possible the education of a considerable number of trained analysts, whose activity must be regarded as the sole possible protection against injury to patients by ignorant and unqualified persons, whether they are laymen or doctors.