ABSTRACT
The Freudian iconography in Edoardo Weiss’s office, which included the memorabilia about both Sigmund Freud and Paul Federn, may have been in itself unusual, but that generation of faithful followers of Freud’s usually had some reminders of their professional emotional commitments. Freud “allowed” the members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society to be “critical” of his works, but Weiss quickly went on to add, in a lowered voice, that “of course Freud did not accept” any such negative points. But at a cafe discussion after a meeting of the Vienna Society Weiss heard about an early case of Freud’s that illustrated the difference between neurosis and psychosis, a distinction Freud at first had been reluctant to make since Freud had hopes that psychoanalysis could ultimately conquer all human ills. Weiss liked to stress that Freud was concerned with motivation that went beyond what could be currently explained scientifically.
