This past January, a dinner was held in New York to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. The oldest independent psychoanalytic journal in continuous publication in North America, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly was founded in 1932. At that time, a single copy cost 75 cents and an annual subscription cost $3.00. The Quarterly was self-published then as it is now.
Sigmund Freud wrote the lead article in the first issue. Dorian Feigenbaum, a European émigré who had known Freud since 1910, was the moving force behind the launching of the Quarterly. Feigenbaum invited Freud to contribute a preface to a special psychoanalytic issue of a medical monthly called the Medical Review of Reviews, which Feigenbaum was editing. (This is the special issue to which the editors referred in their preface to the first issue [see reproduction]—that Freud mistakenly thought was a new psychoanalytic journal in America.) But when one reads the preface that Freud came up with, it hardly inspires confidence in his good wishes. Freud writes:
Dr. Feigenbaum has asked me to write a few words for the Review of which he is in charge, and I take the opportunity of wishing the best success to his undertaking.
I often hear that psycho-analysis is very popular in the United States and that it does not come up against the same stubborn resistance there as it does in Europe. My satisfaction over this is, however, clouded by several circumstances. It seems to me that the popularity of the name of psycho-analysis in America signifies neither a friendly attitude to the thing itself nor any specially wide or deep knowledge of it….often we find in American physicians and writers a very insufficient familiarity with psycho-analysis, so that they know only its terms and a few catch-words—though this does not shake them in the certainty of their judgment…
And then Freud tips his cap ever so slightly to the enterprise he has been asked to honor:
It is to be hoped that works of the kind that Dr. Feigenbaum intends to publish in his Review will be a powerful encouragement to the interest in psycho-analysis in America.
Undaunted, Feigenbaum thanked Freud, and in December 1931 wrote to him again:
Most esteemed Herr Professor,
It is a special joy for me to be able to tell you that, at the beginning of October of this year, the undersigned Editors committee [Bertram Lewin, Frankwood Williams, Gregory Zilboorg, and Feigenbaum himself] in New York was organized for the purpose of the publication of a “Psychoanalytic Quarterly” which is exclusively devoted to Psychoanalysis. As you see, esteemed Herr Professor, it seems that my hope of anno 1929 becomes fulfilled….Besides the editorial committee, a circle of the best known European analysts will be working for the journal [including] Brill, Nunberg, Rado, and Roheim….
Freud's response included a comment regarding Feigenbaum's invitation to Anna Freud that she join the editorial board:
I would like to add that it was my influence which motivated my daughter to accept.
With warm greetings,
to you and your helpers,
Yours,
Freud
On the matter of contributing the lead article, Freud wrote in February 1932:
I have not forgotten my agreement and will keep it; however I beg you
Henry F. Smith, M.D., is editor-in-chief of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. He is also co-chair of the Program Committee, American Psychoanalytic Association; and is training and supervising analyst and chair of the Education Committee, Psychoanalytic Institute of New England East.
Page 28not to wait for me with the publication of the first issue, for at present I have nothing to offer you. The only short work which could be considered is a paper on the acquisition of fire (next number of the Imago)….
At the next occasion, if it is granted to me, I will not forget your new journal which is assured of my best wishes.
With kind regards yours,
Freud
In April 1932, with Freud's “Libidinal Types” as its lead article, the new journal was born and received Freud's blessing. His reaction to the first issue is described in a subsequent note to Feigenbaum: “The first number makes a very good (respectable) impression. I hope you preserve the level now and in the future.” Freud's “The Acquisition of Fire” and “On the Sexuality of Women” appeared in the Quarterly later that same year.
Since 1932, the Quarterly has developed under the guidance of a series of editors-in-chief, including Raymond Gosselin, Gerard Fountain, Jacob Arlow, Dale Boesky, Sander Abend, and Owen Renik. I was appointed editor in 2002.
In commemoration of the Quarterly's 75th anniversary and in addition to the original articles and book reviews included in every issue, the four issues of 2007 and the first of 2008 will feature the republication of several classic and controversial articles from earlier decades in the Quarterly's history—including contributions by Karen Horney, Helene Deutsch, Robert Waelder, Heinrich Racker, Jacob Arlow, Hans Loewald, Franz Alexander, Ralph Greenson, Ives Hendrick, and Robert Fliess—with commentaries by leading contemporary analysts.
Note: The letters quoted are from the collection of the A.A. Brill Library of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. They were translated by Richard Sterba and made available by Nellie Thompson.
Photo: Emmett Wilson, Jr.