ABSTRACT
Eugen Bleuler was the first university professor of psychiatry to engage with S. Freud's theories and to apply them to psychosis even before Freud's D. Schreber text appeared. This chapter shows that he was unhappy with Freud's sexual libido, and that his critique of Freud's Schreber text was rather negative. It also shows that, contrary to common belief, although Bleuler distanced himself from the psychoanalytic movement, he continued to hold and teach the essential theories of Freud, which he accepted from the start, and that he maintained to the end that their theoretical differences were side-issues. The chapter studies the reasons for Bleuler's openness to Freud, and traces the reception of Freud's ideas. Freud was happy that his work had been recognized by the professor of psychiatry in Zurich, although he did not agree with Bleuler's interpretation of Schreber. He always maintained a theoretical distance from the Swiss—including Bleuler—and this was to preserve psychoanalysis in its pure form.
