ABSTRACT
This paper is the result of a casual remark made at a presentation of Paul Federn’s ego psychology to the staff of Philadelphia State Hospital in September 1956. The writer said then that Federn’s personality may have contributed to his success in treating psychotic patients, while Freud’s different personal approach to these patients might explain his pessimism about their treatability. It is a fact that not a few of Freud’s followers were surprised at how little Freud cared about treating people with severe mental illness and how very doubtful he was that they could be treated at all. He ‘did not exclude’ the possibility that eventually a modified method would be found for treating psychotics; yet when Federn and others, notably Hollos, asked for his 126active support of their efforts, he shielded himself behind old age and illness—for Freud, hardly real reasons. Some of those close to him felt that he was always more interested in the research aspects of his work than in healing and helping. This attitude is also apparent in his writings.
