ABSTRACT
The Burgholzli had openly, and much to the surprise of many German colleagues, endorsed some of Sigmund Freud’s views. It was headed by Eugen Bleuler, who also held the chair for psychiatry at the University. Bleuler’s support for Freud can hardly be overestimated. He was indeed the very first university professor to support Freud’s views. C. G. Jung himself was already a well established figure in international psychiatry and academia—actually more so than Freud, nineteen years his senior. Jung was quite correct in stating that “Freud has only a few adherents in German speaking countries, and a handful in the United States, otherwise he is unknown or heavily attacked”. The conflict between the Burghölzli staff and Freud came to the fore at the first international meeting of psychoanalysts, in April 1908 in Salzburg/Austria, although it was not Bleuler and Freud who crossed swords, but C. G. Jung and Karl Abraham.
