ABSTRACT
People like Freud have difficulty in preserving an incognito. To keep distinct the work and the personality of its creator seems impossible. On contemporary observers certain human weaknesses of Freud made a particularly strong impression because he displayed them openly yet without ever making concessions to them in his scientific work. Freud’s need for an assentient echo from the outer world expresses itself particularly in his relationship to his first small group of pupils. Freud has often been reproached for this very obvious demand on the part of a creative man. The rigid scientific criticism and objectivity to which Freud subjected his own work and that of the others preserved the group from sectarianism. The striving for independence was of course particularly strong in those pupils who felt disappointed in their personal emotional relationship to Freud or threatened by their own ambivalence. History repeats itself; and sometimes, although seldom enough, it draws upon earlier experiences and corrects the old mistakes.
