PREFACE

to ADDRESSES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS by J. J. PUTNAM, M. D.
001 ameritus Professor of Neurology, Harvard University (International Psycho-
002Analytical Library, No. 1). The International Psycho-Analytical Press,
003 London — Vienna — New York 1921.
004

The Editor of this series must feel a special satisfaction in being able
005 to issue as its Opening volume this collection of the psycho-analytical writings
006 of Professor James J. Putnam, the distinguished neurologist of Harvard
007 University. Professor Putnam, who died in 1918 at the age of seventy-two,
008 was not only the first American to interest himself in psycho-analysis, but
009 soon became its most decided supporter and its most influential representative
010 in America. In consequence of the established reputation which he had
011 gained through his activities as a teacher, as well as through his important
012 work in the domain of organic nervous disease, and thanks to the universal
013 respect which his personality enjoyed, he was able to do perhaps more
014 than anyone for the spread of psycho-analysis in his own country, and was
015 able to protect it from aspersions which, on the other side of the Atlantic
016 no less than this, would inevitably have been cast upon it. But all such
017 reproaches were bound to be silenced when a man of Putnam’s lofty ethical
018 standards and more rectitude had ranged himself among the supporters
019 of the new science and of the therapeutics based upon it.
020

The papers here collected into a single volume, which were written by
021 Putmnn between 1909 and the end of his life, give a good picture of his
022 relations to psycho-analysis. They show how he was at first occupied in
023 correeting a provisional judgement which was based on insufficient knowledge;
024 how he then accepted the essence of analysis, recognized its capacity for
025 throwing & clear light upon the origin of human imperfections and failings,[/]
026

263and how he was struclt by the prospect of contributing towards the improvement
027 of humanity along analytical lines; how he then became convinced by his
028 own activities as a physician as to the truth of most of the psycho-analytical
029 conclusions and postulates, and then in his turn bare witness to the fact
030 that the physician who makes use of analysis understands far more about
031 the sufferings of his patients and can do far more for them than was possible
032 with the earlier methods of treatment; and final how he began to extend
033 beyond the limits of analysis, demanding that as a science it should be
034 linked on to a particular philosophical system, and that its practice should
035 be openly associated with a particular set of ethical doctrines.
036

So it is not to be wondered at that a mind with such pre-eminently
037 ethicfll and philosophical tendencies as Putnam’s should have desired, after
038 he had plunged deep into psycho-analysis, to establish the closest relation
039 between it and the aims which lay nearest his heart. But his enthusiasm,
040 so admirable in a man of his advanced age, did not succeed in carrying
041 others along with him. Younger people remained cooler. It was especially
042 Ferenczi who expressed the opposite view. The decisive reason for the rejection
043 Of Putnam’S proposals was the doubt as to which of the countless philosophical
044 systems should be accepted, since they all seemed to rest on an equally
045 insecure basis, and since everything had up till then been sacrificed for
046 the sake of the relative certainty of the results of psycho-analysis. It seemecl
047 more prudent to wait, and to discover whether a particular attitude towards
048 life might be forced upon us with all the weight of necessity by analytical
049 investigation itself.
050

It is our duty to express our thanks to the author’s widow, Mrs. Pumami
051 for her assistance with the manuscripts, with the copyright, and with
052 financial support, without all of which the publication of this volume would
053 have been impossible. No English manuscripts were forthcoming in the
054 case of the papers numbered VI, VII, and X. They have been translated
055 into English by Dr. Katherine Jones from the German text which originated
056 from Putnam himself.
057

This volume will keep fresh in analytical circles the memory of the
058 friend whose loss we so profoundly deplore. May it be the first of a series
059 of publications which shall serve the end of furthering the understanding
060 and application of psycho-analysis among those who speak the English
061 tongue — an end to which James J. Putnam dedicated the last ten years
062 of his fruitful life.
063