ABSTRACT
Two enemies lie in wait for every powerful new movement: the over-valuation of its adherents and the undervaluation of its opponents. Psychoanalysis has encountered both in surprising degree. It afforded its adherents a joyous enthusiasm, which meanwhile found a rather exuberant expression and irritated the opponents unnecessarily. To the writings of this class, belong my own first works, in which, from joy over unexpected practical results and scientific discoveries, I struck a temporarily injudicious and over-affective tone. The greatest error in this was that I, looking through rose-colored glasses, estimated the practical difficulties and theoretical mysteries too low and emphasized them too little; Psychoanalysis is to-day, and in important points, will be for a long time yet, in the stage of testing and proving. I believe that we psychoanalysts should have learned much more from the foresight and modest reserve of Freud. Perhaps some of us sought unconsciously from praise for our work, a compensation for the immeasurably violent attacks on our intellectual and even moral qualities to which we were exposed.
