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Freud's Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918–1938
Today many view Sigmund Freud as an elitist whose psychoanalytic treatment was reserved for the intellectually and financially advantaged. However, in this new work Elizabeth Ann Danto presents a strikingly different picture of Freud and the early psychoanalytic movement. Danto recovers the neglected history of Freud and other analysts' intense social activism and their commitment to treating the poor and working classes.
Danto's narrative begins in the years following the end of World War I and the fall of the Habsburg Empire. Joining with the social democratic and artistic movements that were sweeping across Central and Western Europe, analysts such as Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Erik Erikson, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Helene Deutsch envisioned a new role for psychoanalysis. These psychoanalysts saw themselves as brokers of social change and viewed psychoanalysis as a challenge to conventional political and social traditions. Between 1920 and 1938 and in ten different cities, they created outpatient centers that provided free mental health care. They believed that psychoanalysis would share in the transformation of civil society and that these new outpatient centers would help restore people to their inherently good and productive selves.
Drawing on oral histories and new archival material, Danto offers vivid portraits of the movement's central figures and their beliefs. She explores the successes, failures, and challenges faced by free institutes such as the Berlin Poliklinik, the Vienna Ambulatorium, and Alfred Adler's child-guidance clinics. She also describes the efforts of Wilhelm Reich's Sex-Pol, a fusion of psychoanalysis and left-wing politics, which provided free counseling and sex education and aimed to end public repression of private sexuality.
In addition to situating the efforts of psychoanalysts in the political and cultural contexts of Weimar Germany and Red Vienna, Danto also discusses the important treatments and methods developed during this period, including child analysis, short-term therapy, crisis intervention, task-centered treatment, active therapy, and clinical case presentations. Her work illuminates the importance of the social environment and the idea of community to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.
Danto's narrative begins in the years following the end of World War I and the fall of the Habsburg Empire. Joining with the social democratic and artistic movements that were sweeping across Central and Western Europe, analysts such as Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Erik Erikson, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Helene Deutsch envisioned a new role for psychoanalysis. These psychoanalysts saw themselves as brokers of social change and viewed psychoanalysis as a challenge to conventional political and social traditions. Between 1920 and 1938 and in ten different cities, they created outpatient centers that provided free mental health care. They believed that psychoanalysis would share in the transformation of civil society and that these new outpatient centers would help restore people to their inherently good and productive selves.
Drawing on oral histories and new archival material, Danto offers vivid portraits of the movement's central figures and their beliefs. She explores the successes, failures, and challenges faced by free institutes such as the Berlin Poliklinik, the Vienna Ambulatorium, and Alfred Adler's child-guidance clinics. She also describes the efforts of Wilhelm Reich's Sex-Pol, a fusion of psychoanalysis and left-wing politics, which provided free counseling and sex education and aimed to end public repression of private sexuality.
In addition to situating the efforts of psychoanalysts in the political and cultural contexts of Weimar Germany and Red Vienna, Danto also discusses the important treatments and methods developed during this period, including child analysis, short-term therapy, crisis intervention, task-centered treatment, active therapy, and clinical case presentations. Her work illuminates the importance of the social environment and the idea of community to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 22, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 15, 2023
Incredible to read a comprehensive and detailed account of the forgotten history of psychoanalysis -its radical routes of proving free therapy for the poor, starting in Germany and Vienna and then to many other parts of Europe. Psychoanalysis is often associated with the middle class but this history that Danto tells us is something quite different, that its early practitioners wanted to bring psychoanalysis to a wider layer of people and they had political motivations for this desire. This history is forgotten or misremembered because of the rise of fascism in Europe, which then led to many of the clinics being shut down, and in some cases, psychoanalysis was given a conservative makeover.
I am grateful to Danto for retelling and reviving the radical histories of psychoanalysis. This provides a useful backdrop for contemporary theorists and practitioners to work out the production tensions between psychoanalysis and Marxism.
I am grateful to Danto for retelling and reviving the radical histories of psychoanalysis. This provides a useful backdrop for contemporary theorists and practitioners to work out the production tensions between psychoanalysis and Marxism.
April 27, 2010
This is an interesting history of psychoanalysis in Europe between the two world wars. Danto makes connections between psychoanalysis and social justice.
December 4, 2024
The writing is dense so it took me longer to read than expected. It is a useful corrective to the Freud-the-villain narrative that seems to fill introductory psychology courses and students. It gives a basis for richer conversations about psychoanalysis (theory and practice) and the relationship (s) to possibilities for individual and structural change.
302-3 Freud always believed that psychoanalysis would release the reasoning abilities in oppressed individuals and that personal insight (combined with critical thinking) naturally led to psychological independence. In Civilization and Its Discontents, arguably his most overt discussion of political thought, Freud outlines the way in which the human quest for instinctual satisfaction is constantly frustrated by – and yet requires – the external constraints of culture, Far from proving that Freud’s view of human nature was negative or pessimistic, the little volume, written a few years before Hitler’s ascent to power, asserts precisely that human survival does not lie solely in individual strength or free will. “The replacement of the power of the individual by the power of a community constitutes the decisive step of civilization.” Suggesting that social life should be regulated only if it benefits the collective, Freud states that the “first requisite of civilization is that of justice – that is, the assurance that a law will not be broken in favor of an individual.” He has prefaced this with a contention about human nature, that “human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals.” The autonomous ego exists, but it is mutable and driven to reach out to others in order to survive. In his wide-ranging speculations on the relationship between individuals and culture, he affirms interdependency, attachment, and collectivity as the appropriate – and most effective – vehicles for human emancipation.
155 Freud’s figure of speech revealed a noteworthy awareness of possible left-wing opposition to individual clinical treatment. Berlin’s local Communist Party in particular criticized psychoanalysis for its focus on the individual’s responsibility for personal success or failure at the expense, they thought, of class struggle.
142 Bettauer, who freely referred his blue-collar reasders to the Ambulatorium, saw psychoanalysis as a genuine service that would relieve depressive overburdened human beings of their individual suffering and, consequently, improve their entire family and social system. Kraus by his own admission despised the idea of individual change but failed to understand the democratizing effect of personal transformation on the larger social and economic universe. Thus he accused Freud of blaming victims for their own oppressed predicament whereas Bettauer praised Freud for just the opposite, for relieving the individual of self-blame. Their disagreement epitomized the pro- and anti-Freudian argument that still rages today.
214 […] social relations are parallel to, not the opposite of, object relations. Fromm’s course at the Institute would unavoidably present two apparently antithetical positions, but the difference between sociology and psychology was really just methodological, a question of form and not content.
-----
2 indigent care
14 Emma Goldman
16, 18, 166, 184, 186, 198, 275 individual social healing
32 Bettelheim
42, 214-5 early childhood education & Anna Freud et al (Bernfeld as idealistic Zionist)
51 reverie reality
56 economic need <-> neuroses
60-1 psychoanalytic left
61 Freud vs Jung re unconscious
65 Free clinics common (not just for psychoanalysis)
66-7 Freud avoiding left and right labels (not like Reich or later Fanon)
74 family vs state
76, 83 Adler vs Freud on child development
82 1921 Austrian healthcare vs US (rvw?)
105, 107-8 children & teens
109-10, 129 bureaucracy, class & access
117, 197 reproductive freedom Reich, Engels
123 theory vs technique
140 l loving presence
142 blaming or freeing victims: Freud, psychological & social change (also, couples tx?)
143 short-term therapy, antisemitism
146-7 Europe vs US; lay vs medical therapy
150-1 politics re psychoanalysis/philosophy
154, 159 Klein vs A. Freud on child tx
204 Fromm vs Freud
205 social workers
253 1935: Hitler won & psychoanalysis…
278-82 Anna Freud; German IPA collapse into Nazism (Jung)
292-3 Anna Freud: Fascism? Let’s open a nursery!
295-6 Adler vs Freud on community
297 Vienna: Freud’s free clinic closed by Nazi force of arms (1938)
302-3 Freud always believed that psychoanalysis would release the reasoning abilities in oppressed individuals and that personal insight (combined with critical thinking) naturally led to psychological independence. In Civilization and Its Discontents, arguably his most overt discussion of political thought, Freud outlines the way in which the human quest for instinctual satisfaction is constantly frustrated by – and yet requires – the external constraints of culture, Far from proving that Freud’s view of human nature was negative or pessimistic, the little volume, written a few years before Hitler’s ascent to power, asserts precisely that human survival does not lie solely in individual strength or free will. “The replacement of the power of the individual by the power of a community constitutes the decisive step of civilization.” Suggesting that social life should be regulated only if it benefits the collective, Freud states that the “first requisite of civilization is that of justice – that is, the assurance that a law will not be broken in favor of an individual.” He has prefaced this with a contention about human nature, that “human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals.” The autonomous ego exists, but it is mutable and driven to reach out to others in order to survive. In his wide-ranging speculations on the relationship between individuals and culture, he affirms interdependency, attachment, and collectivity as the appropriate – and most effective – vehicles for human emancipation.
155 Freud’s figure of speech revealed a noteworthy awareness of possible left-wing opposition to individual clinical treatment. Berlin’s local Communist Party in particular criticized psychoanalysis for its focus on the individual’s responsibility for personal success or failure at the expense, they thought, of class struggle.
142 Bettauer, who freely referred his blue-collar reasders to the Ambulatorium, saw psychoanalysis as a genuine service that would relieve depressive overburdened human beings of their individual suffering and, consequently, improve their entire family and social system. Kraus by his own admission despised the idea of individual change but failed to understand the democratizing effect of personal transformation on the larger social and economic universe. Thus he accused Freud of blaming victims for their own oppressed predicament whereas Bettauer praised Freud for just the opposite, for relieving the individual of self-blame. Their disagreement epitomized the pro- and anti-Freudian argument that still rages today.
214 […] social relations are parallel to, not the opposite of, object relations. Fromm’s course at the Institute would unavoidably present two apparently antithetical positions, but the difference between sociology and psychology was really just methodological, a question of form and not content.
-----
2 indigent care
14 Emma Goldman
16, 18, 166, 184, 186, 198, 275 individual social healing
32 Bettelheim
42, 214-5 early childhood education & Anna Freud et al (Bernfeld as idealistic Zionist)
51 reverie reality
56 economic need <-> neuroses
60-1 psychoanalytic left
61 Freud vs Jung re unconscious
65 Free clinics common (not just for psychoanalysis)
66-7 Freud avoiding left and right labels (not like Reich or later Fanon)
74 family vs state
76, 83 Adler vs Freud on child development
82 1921 Austrian healthcare vs US (rvw?)
105, 107-8 children & teens
109-10, 129 bureaucracy, class & access
117, 197 reproductive freedom Reich, Engels
123 theory vs technique
140 l loving presence
142 blaming or freeing victims: Freud, psychological & social change (also, couples tx?)
143 short-term therapy, antisemitism
146-7 Europe vs US; lay vs medical therapy
150-1 politics re psychoanalysis/philosophy
154, 159 Klein vs A. Freud on child tx
204 Fromm vs Freud
205 social workers
253 1935: Hitler won & psychoanalysis…
278-82 Anna Freud; German IPA collapse into Nazism (Jung)
292-3 Anna Freud: Fascism? Let’s open a nursery!
295-6 Adler vs Freud on community
297 Vienna: Freud’s free clinic closed by Nazi force of arms (1938)
August 13, 2026
Freud's Free Clinics is an important rectification to the history of psychoanalysis. Danto illuminates European psychoanalysis' original, fundamental commitment to providing analysis to everyone who needs it, not only those who can pay. Most of this history takes place in (Red) Vienna under the government of the Austro-Marxist Social Democrats, with the 1st and 2nd generation psychoanalysts making up the cast.
I would personally recommend the later chapters over the earlier ones, as the earlier ones are mainly focused on dispelling myths about the origins of psychoanalysis (e.g., it is/was only for middle-class women). The final chapters are especially compelling, and fit into a broader discussion about the exodus of the European intellectuals.
One note on dogma and Freud: much like Marx, the orthodoxy that took up Freud's name was often much more strict around adherence to concepts than the man himself. Unlike Marx, Freud's circle was filled with many brilliant analysts who developed new concepts and ideas, some deviating more than others. A Freudian 'party'-line can be broadly constructed around three main ideas: a commitment to rationally explaining the unconscious, admitting sexuality is a key part of neurosis, and affirming the purpose of psychoanalysis as ameliorating the conditions of a sick society.
The story is fascinating, but one wishes Danto had an editor, as the text is interspersed with typing errors and the organization sometime veers off. Its also unfortunate that Danto seems to not be confident with Marxism. Additionally, the book is, in my opinion, insufficiently critical towards the Social Democratic state and Freud's institutional position as the paterfamilias of psychoanalysis. Throughout the book there are sparks of interesting issues, but they are rarely delved into with detail.
(Some of those interesting issues: The discussion around money in the institution is, as always, fascinating; The choice to use more objective metrics to record patients, i.e., how statistics & objectivity is used (also cf. Guattari's La Grille); the synthesis (without sublation) of positivism and psychoanalysis all under the banner (world-view) of social-democratic science (p 161); Austro-Marxist state being progressive in a unique state-paternalistic, family-oriented way (cf. book on Austro-Marxist athletics); anything relating to Reich and the Freudo-Marxists and their conflicts; etc).
Quotes:
"All psychoanalysts were at the least social democratic" (265)
"Orthodox Freudianism is all the more liberating for its emphasis on the unconscious and sexuality and for its tolerance of the irrational" (228)
"Reading these passages from [...] today, Simmel's warning may seem obscured by the language of Marxism" (246). You have got to be fucking kidding me.
"Fifteen years of a worker’s regime in an urban environment had attempted to show that a new social structure could survive based on equitable housing, employment, and welfare services. It could survive market forces but not armed ones" (272). Odd way say that SocDem was incapable of overcoming capitalism (portraying the rise of fascism as if it was purely contingent)!
"Interestingly, separated from the workers movements of Red Vienna, their [Adler and Reich in America] theories became markedly more removed from social factor" (273). What is interesting or unexpected about this? The Frankfurt school at large, as well! Grand hotel abyss, as Lukacs put it; theory without its body.
I would personally recommend the later chapters over the earlier ones, as the earlier ones are mainly focused on dispelling myths about the origins of psychoanalysis (e.g., it is/was only for middle-class women). The final chapters are especially compelling, and fit into a broader discussion about the exodus of the European intellectuals.
One note on dogma and Freud: much like Marx, the orthodoxy that took up Freud's name was often much more strict around adherence to concepts than the man himself. Unlike Marx, Freud's circle was filled with many brilliant analysts who developed new concepts and ideas, some deviating more than others. A Freudian 'party'-line can be broadly constructed around three main ideas: a commitment to rationally explaining the unconscious, admitting sexuality is a key part of neurosis, and affirming the purpose of psychoanalysis as ameliorating the conditions of a sick society.
The story is fascinating, but one wishes Danto had an editor, as the text is interspersed with typing errors and the organization sometime veers off. Its also unfortunate that Danto seems to not be confident with Marxism. Additionally, the book is, in my opinion, insufficiently critical towards the Social Democratic state and Freud's institutional position as the paterfamilias of psychoanalysis. Throughout the book there are sparks of interesting issues, but they are rarely delved into with detail.
(Some of those interesting issues: The discussion around money in the institution is, as always, fascinating; The choice to use more objective metrics to record patients, i.e., how statistics & objectivity is used (also cf. Guattari's La Grille); the synthesis (without sublation) of positivism and psychoanalysis all under the banner (world-view) of social-democratic science (p 161); Austro-Marxist state being progressive in a unique state-paternalistic, family-oriented way (cf. book on Austro-Marxist athletics); anything relating to Reich and the Freudo-Marxists and their conflicts; etc).
Quotes:
"All psychoanalysts were at the least social democratic" (265)
"Orthodox Freudianism is all the more liberating for its emphasis on the unconscious and sexuality and for its tolerance of the irrational" (228)
"Reading these passages from [...] today, Simmel's warning may seem obscured by the language of Marxism" (246). You have got to be fucking kidding me.
"Fifteen years of a worker’s regime in an urban environment had attempted to show that a new social structure could survive based on equitable housing, employment, and welfare services. It could survive market forces but not armed ones" (272). Odd way say that SocDem was incapable of overcoming capitalism (portraying the rise of fascism as if it was purely contingent)!
"Interestingly, separated from the workers movements of Red Vienna, their [Adler and Reich in America] theories became markedly more removed from social factor" (273). What is interesting or unexpected about this? The Frankfurt school at large, as well! Grand hotel abyss, as Lukacs put it; theory without its body.
June 24, 2026
3,5 ⭐️
ótimas descrições dos envolvidos e dos ambientes
muito legal conhecer melhor partes dessa história da psicologia
ótimas descrições dos envolvidos e dos ambientes
muito legal conhecer melhor partes dessa história da psicologia
January 20, 2010
Freud believed in psychoanalysis for the masses.
Before the phenomena of $200/per session psychotherapy that we now see as normal, Freud and his friends were opening free clinics in Germany, declaring that free mental health care was a human right and social obligation!
An eye-opening look at a part of Freud's legacy that has been largely forgotten or overlooked by the therapist industry.
warning: although the history is important, this book is quite dense.
Before the phenomena of $200/per session psychotherapy that we now see as normal, Freud and his friends were opening free clinics in Germany, declaring that free mental health care was a human right and social obligation!
An eye-opening look at a part of Freud's legacy that has been largely forgotten or overlooked by the therapist industry.
warning: although the history is important, this book is quite dense.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews