Page:Freud - The history of the psychoanalytic movement.djvu/39

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HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MOVEMENT
33

fender. It was not new arguments or better observations that served Bleuler as a guidance for these verdicts, but only the reference to his own knowledge, the inadequacy of which the author no longer admits as in his earlier writings. Here an almost irreparable loss seemed to threaten psychoanalysis. However, in his last utterance ("Die Kritiken der Schizophrenie," 1914) on the occasion of the attacks made upon him owing to his introduction of psychoanalysis into his book on "Schizophrenie," Bleuler rises to what he himself terms a "haughty presumption:" "But now I will assume a haughty presumption, I consider that the many psychologies to date have contributed mighty little to the explanation of the connection between psychogenetic symptoms and diseases, but that the deeper psychology (tiefen psychologie) furnishes us a part of the psychology still to be created, which the physician needs in order to understand his patients and to heal them rationally; and I even believe that in my 'Schizophrenie' I have taken a very small step towards this." The first two assertions are surely correct, the latter may be an error.

Since by the "deeper psychology" psychoanalysis alone is to be understood, we may, for the present, remain satisfied with this admission.