ABSTRACT
Although the discovery of The Elizabeth Severn Papers was a major recovery of unknown materials as part of the Ferenczi legacy, the discovery of Kurt Eissler's interview of Elizabeth Severn in 1952, seven years before her death in 1959, was also a significant event. Kurt Eissler, MD, came to America in 1938 never having had any direct contact with Freud. Escaping Hitler, he not only found a home in the United States but became the keeper of the keys to Freud's reputation and the psychoanalysis. Eissler's most significant and lasting contribution to psychoanalysis, was his creative idea of establishing The Freud Archives. A dramatic example of Eissler's protectiveness of Freud, was evident in a controversy that developed around one of Freud's students, Victor Tausk, MD. The process of disillusionment unfolded when Masson met Eissler at a meeting of the American Psychoanalyst Association in 1974. Freud's original theory of neurosis was that hysteria/neurosis was caused by parental childhood sexual abuse.
