ABSTRACT
The Swiss dominated the development of organized psychoanalysis during its first years. It was through them that psychoanalysis got a toehold in the doors of European psychiatry and academia. Zurich was the birthplace of modern psychodynamic psychiatry. Zurich was also the main recruiting centre for the nascent psychoanalytic movement, offering a unique possibility to teach and learn psychoanalysis, both at the Burgholzli and at Zurich University, at which Eugen Bleuler and Carl Gustav Jung held posts as professor and assistant professor, respectively. The foundation of the Swiss branch society was somewhat delayed, mainly because of Bleuler's reservations about the intended "exclusiveness" of the Society. In the French-speaking part of Switzerland, in Geneva, Theodore Flournoy had already been interested in psychoanalysis around the turn of the century—and had been an important mentor and discussion partner for Jung. In 1919, Edouard Claparede, his pupil and successor as professor of psychology at the university, founded an open circle for people interested in psychoanalysis.
