ABSTRACT
Helene Deutsch analysis with S. Freud was intimately touched by one of Freud’s most senior followers in Vienna, Victor Tausk. Tausk was born in Slovakia in 1879. Like Helene, he grew up on the cultural outskirts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; as an ambitious young man he had gone to Vienna in 1897 to study law. Tausk was young and talented, and his aspirations disillusioned him with the life of a lawyer. Tausk had Freud’s personal support, and the rest of the Viennese psychoanalytic group did what they could to smooth his way. Freud complained to Helene that Tausk would not merely accept ideas but would come to believe they were his alone. Freud and Tausk shared a similar reproach. Part of Helene’s fascination with the Freud-Tausk struggle stemmed from the similarity of their personalities. Freud made Helene choose between terminating Tausk’s analysis with her and discontinuing her analysis with Freud.
