INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL LIBRARY
001 No. 1
002

ADRESSES
003 ON
004 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
005

BY
006

J. J. PUNTNAM, M.D.
007 EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY
008 HARVARD UNIVERSITY
009

WITH A PREFACE BY
010 SIGM. FREUD, M.D., L.L.D.
011

THE INTERNATIONAL PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL PRESS
012 LONDON VIENNA NEW YORK
013 1921
014

iii
015

PREFACE

The Editor of this series must feel a special satis-
016faction in being able to issue as its Opening volume this
017 collection of the psycho-analytical writings of Professor
018 James J. Putnam, the distinguished neurologist of Harvard
019 University. Professor Putnam, who died in 1918 at the
020 age of seventy-two, was not only the first American to
021 interest himself in psycho-analysis, but soon became
022 its most decided supporter and its most influential
023 representative in America. In consequence of the established
024 reputation which he had gained through his activities as
025 a teacher, as well as through his important work in the
026 domain of organic nervous disease, and thanks to the
027 universal respect which his personality enjoyed, he was
028 able to do perhaps more than anyone for the spread of
029 psycho-analysis in his own country, and was able to
030 protect it from aspersions which, on the other side of
031 the Atlantic no less than this, would inevitably have been
032 cast upon it. But all such reproaches were bound to be
033 silenced when a man of Putnam’s lofty ethical standards
034 and more rectitude had ranged himself among the sup-
035porters of the new science and of the therapeutics based
036 upon it.
037

The papers here collected into a single volume, which
038 were written by Putnam between 1909 and the end of
039 his life, give a good picture of his relations to psycho-
040analysis. They show how he was at first occupied in
041 correeting a provisional judgement which was based on
042 insufficient knowledge; how he then accepted the essence
043 of analysis, recognized its capacity for throwing a clear
044 light upon the origin of human imperfections and failings,[/]
045

and how he was struclt by the prospect of contributing
046 towards the improvement of humanity along analytical
047 lines; how he then became convinced by his own activi-
048ties as a physician as to the truth of most of the psycho-
049analytical conclusions and postulates, and then in his turn
050 bare witness to the fact that the physician who makes
051 use of analysis understands far more about the sufferings
052 of his patients and can do far more for them than was
053 possible with the earlier methods of treatment; and
054 final how he began to extend beyond the limits of
055 analysis, demanding that as a science it should be linked
056 on to a particular philosophical system, and that its
057 practice should be openly associated with a particular
058 set of ethical doctrines.
059

iv
060

So it is not to be wondered at that a mind with
061 such pre-eminently ethical and philosophical tendencies as
062 Putnam’s should have desired, after he had plunged deep
063 into psycho-analysis, to establish the closest relation
064 between it and the aims which lay nearest his heart. But
065 his enthusiasm, so admirable in a man of his advanced
066 age, did not succeed in carrying others along with him.
067 Younger people remained cooler. It was especially
068 Ferenczi who expressed the opposite view. The decisive
069 reason for the rejection of Putnam’s proposals was the doubt
070 as to which of the countless philosophical systems should be
071 accepted, since they all seemed to rest on an equally
072 insecure basis, and since everything had up till then been
073 sacrificed for the sake of the relative certainty of the
074 results of psycho-analysis. It seemed more prudent to
075 wait, and to discover whether a particular attitude towards
076 life might be forced upon us with all the weight of
077 necessity by analytical investigation itself.
078

It is our duty to express our thanks to the author’s
079 widow, Mrs. Pumami, for her assistance with the manu-
080scripts, with the copyright, and with financial support,[/]
081

vwithout all of which the publication of this volume would
082 have been impossible. No English manuscripts were
083 forthcoming in the case of the papers numbered VI, VII,
084 and X. They have been translated into English by
085 Dr. Katherine Jones from the German text which originated
086 from Putnam himself.
087

This volume will keep fresh in analytical circles the
088 memory of the friend whose loss we so profoundly
089 deplore. May it be the first of a series of publications
090 which shall serve the end of furthering the understanding
091 and application of psycho-analysis among those who speak
092 the English tongue — an end to which James J. Putnam
093 dedicated the last ten years of his fruitful life.
094

Jan. 1921
095

SIGM. FREUD
096