Freud's influence in America can be explained in part by the greater openness of American medicine during a crucial period of its development from 1910 to 1940. American medicine transformed psychoanalysis from a humanistic, social service European movement into a prosperous speciality with an appropriate theory that altered Freud's conceptions of aggression and the ego. The subsequent identification of psychoanalysis with the psychiatric establishment and the proliferation of rival therapies has made it vulnerable to changes in professional interests and cultural styles.
This paper describes the transplantation of psychoanalysis from Europe to Los Angeles and the similarities and differences in followers, cultural attitudes, institutional organization, and patient symptoms. Psychoanalysis in both places attracted psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, artists, writers, and movie people, all committed to "modernism" and cultural change. But special American conditions created greater institutional rigidity, medicalization, and a more diffuse patient symptomatology centered on the maternal relationship. Such conditions also fostered bitter disputes over modifications of psychoanalytic theory and practice which have only recently become less acute as the status of psychoanalysis has declined in America.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.