Page:Freud - The history of the psychoanalytic movement.djvu/43

 I will not continue the history of the Psychoanalytic Congress. The third one took place at Weimar, September, 1911, and even surpassed the previous ones in spirit and scientific interest. J. J. Putnam, who was present at this meeting, later expressed in America his satisfaction and his respect for the "mental attitude" of those present and quoted words which I was supposed to have used in reference to the latter: "They have learned to endure a bit of truth." As a matter of fact any one who has attended scientific congresses must have received a lasting impression in favor of the Psychoanalytic Association. I myself had presided over two former congresses. I thought it best to give every lecturer ample time for his paper and left the discussions of these lectures to take place later as a sort of private exchange of ideas. Jung, who presided over the Weimar meeting, reëstablished the discussions after each lecture, which had not, however, proved disturbing at that time.

Two years later, in September, 1913, quite another picture was presented by the congress at Münich which is still vividly recalled by those who were present. It was presided over by Jung in an unamiable and incorrect fashion: the lecturers were limited as to time, and the discussion dwarfed the lectures. Through a malicious mood of chance the evil genius of Hoche had taken up his residence in the same house in which the analysts held their meetings. Hoche could easily have convinced himself that his characterization of these psychoanalysts, as a sect, blindly and meekly following their leader, was true ad absurdum. The fatiguing and unedifying proceedings ended in the reëlection of Jung as president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, which fact Jung accepted, although two fifths of those present refused him their support. We took leave from one another without feeling the need to meet again!

About the time of this third Congress the condition of the International Psychoanalytic Association was as follows: The local groups at Vienna, Berlin, and Zürich had constituted themselves already at the congress at Nuremberg in 1910. In May, 1911, a group, under the chairmanship of Dr. L. Seif, was added at Münich. In the same year the first American local group was formed under the