(Dr. Marcel Heiman, of New York, and Mrs. Helen Fischer, Executive Secretary of the Association, were designated the official representatives of the APsaA to the 27th International Psychoanalytic Congress. They will render their formal report at the coming Fall Meeting; what follows here is a personal impression of the Congress. Dr. Heiman is a native of Vienna.
Sunday morning, July 25, our flight brought us to the Vienna airport in Schwechat. Swiftly and competently, we are whisked through customs. The sun shines brightly as a Mercedes taxi drives us toward the center of town.
The first victim on whom to practice my almost forgotten local dialect is the taxi driver. Engaging him in a jovial conversation which has to start out with the sad state of the world, I lead him to Vienna, the City of Congresses, and finally to the current one. He shows surprise on learning of our Congress. Then, I: “Have you heard of Professor Sigmund Freud?” A bland stare, and then: “Is that you?”
Sunday night: a reception at the Hofburg for all Congress participants by the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association. The weather was delightful and the setting most beautiful. A courtyard, about 100 yards square, open on one side toward a park (Volksgarten), one side against the back of the magnificent building of the National Library; the other two sides formed by the Hofburg and the Museum of Art — tables of food were arranged around the four sides of the flood-lit square, while within the square were small tables with the delicious petit fours. Red and white wine from Austrian vineyards.
July 26: The opening ceremony on Monday morning, held in the huge ballroom with marble walls and frescoed ceilings, was impressive and memorable. The room could not contain the more than 2,500 participants, and adjacent halls with closed-circuit TV had been prepared to accommodate the overflow. All eyes — of the people and the several TV cameras — were focussed on the one person who was the center of the Congress, from this moment until its final session: Anna Freud.
The Congress was opened by the President of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, Doz. Dr. Wilhelm Solms. Representing the Mayor of Vienna, his Deputy, Frau Gertrud Froehlich-Sandner, brought special greetings to Anna Freud, who after 33 years had set foot in her native town for the first time. This was the moment for reconciliation. The Deputy-Mayor acknowledged Vienna's rejection of Sigmund Freud but also recalled that he was made an Honorary Citizen of Vienna in 1924.
She was followed by the Secretary for Culture who expressed the hope that there would be a wider acceptance of psychoanalysis among physicians.
The most impressive of the welcoming addresses was given by the Secretary for Science and Research, Frau Dr. Herta Firnberg. The tension and conflict between psychoanalysis and Austria, she said, had never been acknowledged until 1971. “But the climate has changed decisively through the formation of the Sigmund Freud Gesellschaft and, furthermore, by Dr. Anna Freud's decision to return to Vienna despite her experience of having been expelled.”
Returning from a committee luncheon we took a shortcut through a courtyard of the Hofburg, called the “Schweizerhof,” named after the Swiss, hired as guards. On the way, we passed several entrances to rear stairways — such as “lackey-staircase,” “pastrybaker-staircase” — reminders of a dead past.