DOI: 10.1002/ppi.

1469

ARTICLE

Otto Gross: A case of exclusion and oblivion in the

history of psychoanalysis
Marcelo Checchia

Postdoctoral Fellow in clinical psychology,

University of São Paulo, Brazil Abstract
Correspondence This article attempts to explain why Otto Gross, one of the
Marcelo Checchia, Rua Capote Valente, 439 cj
pioneers of psychoanalysis and the first to think about its
41. São Paulo, Brazil CEP 05409‐001.
Email: checchia@gmail.com political implications, a thinker who exerted considerable
influence in the artistic and cultural milieux of a number of
European countries, was segregated by the psychoanalytic
community. The article presents some documents and sev-
eral excerpts from the correspondence between psychoana-
lysts that demonstrate the crucial role played by Jung and
Freud in this segregation. The article also aims to explain
how this segregation resulted in the oblivion with which
the history of psychoanalysis treats Otto Gross, questioning
and even denouncing the way history is written in this field.

KEYWORDS

Carl Jung, false diagnoses, history of psychoanalysis, oblivion, Otto

Gross, segregation, Sigmund Freud

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

Otto Gross (1877–1920) left an important and rich body of work in and by which we are led to a series of questions
about the subjective effects of the violence exercised by a patriarchal and authoritarian culture. Gross was the first
psychoanalyst to link psychoanalysis directly with politics and to articulate a more active role for psychoanalysis in
politics. In view of his relevant role in the early days of psychoanalysis, the originality and genius of his ideas, as well
as the allure and influence he exerted on those who lived around him—whether psychoanalysts (such as Sigmund
Freud, Carl Jung, Ernest Jones, and Sándor Ferenczi) or artists and writers (among them Franz Jung, Franz Kafka,
Leonard Frank, Franz Werfel, and Max Brod)—this paper poses and endeavors to answer the question as to why Otto
Gross has been forgotten or even excluded from the history of psychoanalysis.
Even among the more renowned historians of psychoanalysis, Gross is ignored or unacknowledged. Neither Paul
Roazen (1975) nor Peter Gay (1989) even mentioned him and, in his biography of Freud, Ernest Jones (1953/1975),
who was introduced to psychoanalytic practice by Gross, devoted only one paragraph to him, referring to him as
schizophrenic. Roudinesco's biography of Freud (2016) gave more space to Gross but also reinforced the (slanderous)

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https://doi.org/10.1002/ppi.1469
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misconception that he was just one more of the lunatics among Freud's patients and disciples! John Kerr (1997) was a
little fairer and, although his goal was to tell the story of Sabina Spielrein, he portrayed Gross in a little more detail.
However, perhaps because he did not quite understand the influence of anarchism on Gross's ideas, Kerr regarded
him as someone who basically lived immersed in an anti‐patriarchal fantasy.
Curiously, but perhaps not surprisingly, Otto Gross was more fairly portrayed by historians who had no specific
interest in the history of psychoanalysis, but were more interested in anarchism, German expressionist writers, or
Max Weber's sociology. In the 1970s, there was a significant resurgence of Otto Gross's works thanks to these his-
torians. In portraying the life of the von Richthofen sisters, two pioneers of the feminist movement, Martin Green
(1979) provided some details of the seductive side of the psychoanalyst, including some excerpts from Gross's letters
to the sisters, who, at that time, were his lovers. In the same decade, some Weberian scholars became interested in
Gross's influence on the sociologist's thought. As a result of that, in the late 1970s his life and work were portrayed in
a cultural and political perspective in an article by Mitzman (1977). In another political approach, Dvorak (1978) pub-
lished an article about Gross's relationship with the new left of the time, while Anz (1978) emphasized his importance
in the history of literature. The following year, Hurwitz (1979) published the first biography of Gross, finally highlight-
ing his importance to the history of psychoanalysis.
Sixty years after Gross's death, Krieler (1980) organized the first compilation of his fundamental texts, and a few
years later, in commenting upon some of the forgotten Freudian disciples, especially Otto Fenichel, the US historian
Russell Jacoby (1986) also made a more reliable, although not very detailed description of Gross's personality and ideas.
None of the texts published in this period, however, had any impact in the psychoanalytic field. It was not until
the end of the 1990s that a more serious project of recovery and diffusion of the Grossian works began. Gottfried
Heuer (a German neo‐Reichian living in London), in collaboration with Raimund Dehmlow (from Hannover), Anthony
Templer (the grandson of Gross who lives in the United States) and Sophie Templer‐Kuh (Gross's centenarian daugh-
ter living in Berlin), founded the International Otto Gross Society (now the International Association for Otto Gross
Studies). In 1999 Heuer gave formal notice to the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) of the foundation
of the new Association and announced the availability of Gross's works, as well as a bibliography of secondary
sources on the Internet (see ottogrossgesellschaft.com and ottogross.org). Since then, Heuer has hosted annual inter-
national conferences dedicated to the author. As a result, Gross's ideas have spread, especially in Germany and
England. The French edition of the compilation of some of Gross's texts, with a preface by the Germanist historian
Jacques Le Rider (2011), whose beautiful synthesis of the life and thought of the anarchist psychoanalyst shows
he has studied his texts seriously, may also be considered a result of the efforts undertaken by the Association.
Nonetheless, with the exception of this group organized by Heuer, Otto Gross currently remains excluded from
the main schools of psychoanalysis. Usually, the very few who discover him do so through the study of anarchism,
literature, or Weber's sociology. In my own case, this was via Franz Kafka's writing, not through psychoanalytic cir-
cles. This fact raises other relevant questions: why is there such a difference between Gross's depiction by psycho-
analytical historians and by other historians; why do the psychoanalysts themselves (whose function is precisely to
listen to individuals beyond any labelling) passively accept Gross's reduction to a diagnosis; and why do they repeat-
edly fail to acknowledge this interesting fellow, whose ideas influenced so many?
Based upon some official files, such as the minutes of meetings, reports, and published texts, and especially on
other “unofficial” documents such as correspondence between psychoanalysts, we can attempt to reconstruct this
story of segregation and oblivion. Clearly, this can only be considered a construction, an interpretation of excerpts
of associated documents from different times. My intention is not to reach the ultimate truth about Otto Gross
and the others involved in his exclusion from the psychoanalytic field, because, as Jeanne Marie Gagnebin has stated,
the historian's task is “to fight against obliviousness and rejection, to fight, in short, against lies, but without falling
into a dogmatic definition of the truth” (2009, p. 44). Nevertheless, I do intend this construction to be solid enough
to inspire a desire to know more about who Otto Gross was and what his ideas were, thus inserting him, perhaps, into
the Brazilian psychoanalytic debate. I also hope that this construction may in some way lead to an ethical reflection
on the role of psychoanalysts in institutions and on the way psychoanalytical history is made. As Gagnebin put it: “the
CHECCHIA 3 of 13

truth of the past refers more to an ethics of present action than to a problematic of (supposedly scientific) adequacy
between ‘words’ and ‘facts’” (2009, p. 44).

2 | T H E CO N S TR U C T I O N OF T H E F A L S E D I A G N O S I S : A D O C U M E N T A R Y
ANALYSIS

As diagnosis is one of the main factors in this quarrel, let us return to how it was established and to the controversies
involved in its establishment. In 1908 Otto Gross was hospitalized in Burghölzli (a hospital in Zurich, Switzerland,
where Jung worked under the supervision of Eugen Bleuler) at the request of Hans Gross (his father) and with the
help of Freud, who prescribed the hospitalization: “Enclosed the certificate for Otto Gross. Once you have him, don’t
let him out before October when I shall be able to take charge of him” (Freud, 1908 [6 May], in Freud & Jung, 1976).
Jung should only have taken care of Gross's detoxification from opium and cocaine, because it was intended that five
months later Freud would go to the hospital to do the analysis himself. However, this never happened. Despite what
had been agreed, and without consulting Freud, Jung started Gross's analysis. On hearing of this, Ernest Jones wrote
a letter to Freud expressing his concern: “I hear that Jung is going to treat him psychically, and naturally I feel a little
uneasy about that for Jung does not find it easy to conceal his feelings and he has a very strong dislike for Gross”
(Jones, 1908 [13 May], in Freud & Jones, 1995).
Jung had known Otto Gross since 1902, when Gross was first hospitalized for detoxification, but at that time
Gross had not yet been exposed to anarchism. In 1907, two years after an intense period with the anarchists in
Ascona, Switzerland and a year before his second hospitalization, Jung met Gross at a medical congress in Amsterdam
and was concomitantly impressed by Gross's intelligence and impacted by his defense of sexual immoralism, to the
point of telling Freud that Gross was a very intelligent man, although a psychopath. Given Jung's aversion to Gross,
his insistence on analyzing him appears a little suspicious.
When Jung told Freud about the start of his treatment of Gross, he was already fully involved in the task, includ-
ing setting aside other obligations at the hospital. The process comprised at least two weeks of intense psychoana-
lytic work. The sessions were not only daily; they lasted almost all day, and later involved Jung and Gross analyzing
each other. In his first letter to Freud, brief because of being written in the midst of this intense analysis, Jung already
presented a diagnosis of Gross: “a well‐defined obsessional neurosis” (Jung, 1908 [14 May], in Freud & Jung, 1976);
five days later, Freud replied: “I think your diagnosis of Gross is correct. His earliest childhood memory (communi-
cated in Salzburg) is of his father warning a visitor: watch out, he bites! It was in association with my ‘Rat Man’ case
that he remembered it” (Freud, 1908 [19 May], in Freud & Jung, 1976). Eleven days after his first diagnosis, Jung con-
firmed it: “It is a typical obsessional neurosis with many interesting problems” (Jung, 1908 [25 May], in Freud & Jung,
1976). In the meantime, Gross had voluntarily reduced his drug use and then abstained from all drugs. The analysis
was well under way. Jung reported (in the same letter) that it was easy to work with him, and that he considered
him “an extraordinarily decent fellow”. His admiration and respect were such that Jung allowed himself to be analyzed
by Gross, so that, as he admitted later in the same letter, his own psychic health benefited from the experience. Jung
further concluded (also in the same letter): “the analysis has yielded all sorts of scientifically valuable results which we
shall try to formulate soon”.
Exactly a week later, Jung wrote another brief letter to Freud only to announce that he would be speaking more
of Gross later, which he did only after an additional eighteen‐day term, following which, in a longer letter, Jung
completely changed his description of the case. Gross was supposedly not able to overcome his infantile complexes
by reacting to “today's events like a 6‐year‐old boy” (Jung, 1908 [19 June], in Freud & Jung, 1976). With considerable
grief, he further commented on the inadequacies of the analysis—moments of profound empathy left no trace behind
them and insights were lost—and announced his new diagnosis:

I am afraid you will already have read from my words the diagnosis I long refused to believe and which now
I see before me with terrifying clarity: Dem. praec. [dementia praecox]. The diagnosis has been widely
4 of 13 CHECCHIA

confirmed for me by a very careful anamnesis and partial psychoanalysis of his wife. The way he left the
scene confirms the diagnosis: the day before yesterday, left alone for a moment, Gross jumped the garden
wall and will no doubt soon appear in Munich to seek the twilight of his own destiny.

Jung also expressed apprehension about how this news would be received by Freud and further asked that the
new diagnosis should not be transmitted to Gross himself.
For his part, Freud was ambivalent in his answer. First, he stated that the diagnosis of dementia praecox did not
have a precise meaning for him and that a bad ending of an analytic work could not distinguish it from hysteria or
obsessional neurosis—that is, he questioned the diagnostic criteria used by Jung. In addition to this questioning,
Freud gave his own opinion, diagnosing Gross's behavior as a toxic paranoia: “But I attributed [his behavior] to the
medication, especially cocaine, which, as I well know, produces a toxic paranoia” (Freud, 1908 [21 June], in Freud
& Jung, 1976). Also, and for the first time since the beginning of his correspondence with Jung in 1906, Freud also
refuted the legitimacy of a diagnosis of dementia praecox. He was then ambiguous in saying that he had no reason to
doubt Jung's diagnosis, given his great experience in that field; however, he added (in the same letter) that dementia
praecox “is often not a real diagnosis.” Considering the remote memory of Gross's childhood and the intense conflicts
between father and son, Freud returned to the diagnosis of obsessional neurosis: “But couldn’t his condition be
another (obsessional) psychoneurosis, with negative transference caused by his hostility to his father, which presents
itself in the apparent absence or impairment of transference?”
Freud suggested a possible mistake in the handling of the transference. Could Jung have placed himself in this
role of paternal authority? However, Freud did not go any further and indeed tried to clear the air by saying that
he could not underestimate the importance of Jung's having been obliged to analyze Gross—which was not true,
since Jung had deliberately initiated the analysis—and that he could never have learned so much from another case.
Freud also concluded (in the same letter): “a further good result, I see, is that your views have once again come much
closer to mine.” Here Freud's attitude seems suspicious. Why this dubiousness? Why does he contradict himself to
the point of saying that Jung had been obliged to analyze Gross? And why does it seem more important that their
views were closer when, in fact, they were somewhat distant with regard to Gross?
Let us now look at other documents that show these suspicions are at least justified. In the Library of Congress in
Washington, DC, where several documents written by Freud and other psychoanalysts are filed, there is a document
entitled Otto Gross—Biographische Daten [Otto Gross—Biographical Data]. Unfortunately, it is unsigned and undated,
but it contains information that in the Burghölzli archives “nothing can be found that can be interpreted as schizo-
phrenia in the sense of Bleuler's basic symptoms, [and] nothing that fits the description of Dementia praecox in
Kraepelin's sense” (Anonymous, n.d., p. 6). According to the document, the same is true for the case notes from
Mendrisio, another Swiss psychiatric institution in which Gross was hospitalized.
Another document that relativizes the diagnosis of dementia praecox is Gross's obituary written by the psycho-
analyst Wilhelm Stekel, who analyzed Gross in 1914 and therefore knew him profoundly. Gross's father had compul-
sorily admitted him to hospital and the condition for him to leave was to return to psychoanalytic treatment with
Stekel. In the obituary, Stekel (1920) stated that, as soon as the analysis began, it became evident that a wrong diag-
nosis had been made and, in fact, Gross suffered from a severe neurosis aggravated by his addiction to opium and
cocaine.
Finally, one more document contradicts Jung's diagnosis. It can be considered the most relevant one, since it is a
letter in which Jung himself rejects the diagnosis he had established. In 1936, in reply to a letter from the
psychoanalyst Fritz Wittels, who had asked him about Gross, Jung stated that Gross did not suffer from hallucina-
tions and that:

[He] was plagued by never‐ending addictions which he preferably fed with alcaloids that from time to time
put him into a psychotic state . . . . In any case, in 1906 he did not suffer from auditory hallucinations. He
was interned twice at the Zürich Clinic where I treated him both times mainly for cocainism (Jung, quoted
in Heuer, 2017a, p. 84).
CHECCHIA 5 of 13

Here, in addition to lying by saying that he had only treated him for cocainism, Jung surprisingly agreed with
Freud's diagnosis of 1908: Gross entered into a psychotic state not because he suffered from dementia praecox,
but because of his intense and constant addiction. Thus, the contrast between Jung's letters to Freud in 1908 and
his letter to Wittels in 1936 strongly indicates that his initial diagnosis was not only wrong, it was possibly intention-
ally wrong.
There is further evidence to support this hypothesis, namely the relationship between Sabina Spielrein and Carl
Jung. From a certain perspective, Spielrein has a very similar story to Gross's. She was also a pioneer of psychoanal-
ysis who has been forgotten over time, even though her work is very significant. The Italian Jungian psychologist and
writer Aldo Carotenuto rediscovered her in the 1970s. Here in Brazil, the psychoanalyst Renata Cromberg has also
revitalized Spielrein's work and has edited and published it in Portuguese (Cromberg, 2014). In addition to being
one of the first women to become a psychoanalyst, Spielrein was the first person to defend a doctoral thesis in psy-
choanalysis (a rich and detailed presentation of a case of schizophrenia); she anticipated the concept of the death
drive and psychoanalytic studies about language; she conducted Jean Piaget's analysis; and worked directly with
Lev Vygotsky. Spielrein came across psychoanalysis when she was still quite young. Coming from a wealthy and edu-
cated Russian Jewish family, at the age of nineteen she was taken to Zurich to be treated for some serious nervous
disorders. She was admitted to Burghölzli in 1904 and the doctor responsible for her treatment was Jung. It was with
her that he first experienced the psychoanalytic method. From different positions, they discovered psychoanalysis
together. The treatment progressed very well and lasted ten months. Spielrein was then encouraged by Bleuler to
take her medical training at the University of Zurich and was invited to follow up a few cases at the Burghölzli under
Jung's guidance. Soon she became a combination of patient, colleague, and friend of Jung's. Their involvement deep-
ened and, between 1908 and 1909, they became lovers.
Curiously, Gross played an important role in this relationship. Although there is no evidence that he and Spielrein
met in person, this is likely to have happened. In addition to attending the Burghölzli at the same time (in 1908, he as
a patient and she as a medical student), Gross cited her in his text on the symbolism of destruction (Gross, 1914/
2017bb), and she quoted him in a letter written around 1909, precisely when speaking of her relationship with Jung:

Now [Jung] arrives, beaming with pleasure, and tells me with strong emotion about Gross, about the great
insight he has just received (i.e., about polygamy); he no longer wants to suppress his feeling for me; he
admitted that I was his first, dearest woman friend, etc., etc. (his wife of course excepted), and that he
wanted to tell me everything about himself. (Spielrein, 1909, quoted in Carotenuto, 1980/1984, p. 182)

This excerpt makes it evident that Jung leaned on Gross to indulge in his love for Spielrein. However, unlike
Gross, Jung did not publicly support polygamy. For some time he had an extramarital relationship with Spielrein,
but in secret. Soon, however, rumors began to spread and reached Freud. Unhappy with the situation, Spielrein her-
self wrote to Freud asking for (inter)mediation. In order to know what it was about, Freud wrote to Jung asking what
was happening, at which time Jung vehemently denied that he had had a relationship with her. Curiously, he
defended himself by comparing her to Gross: “like Gross, she is a case of fight‐of‐the‐father . . . Gross and Spielrein
are bitter experiences. To none of my patients have I extended so much friendship and from none have I reaped so
much sorrow” (Jung, 1909 [4 June], in Freud & Jung, 1976). Here, once again, Jung contradicted himself in regard to
Gross. Almost a year earlier, in responding to Freud's questioning of his diagnosis, he had stated: “In my opinion the
negative transference to the father explains nothing” (Jung, 1908 [26 June]). Jung also tried to reduce Spielrein's pro-
test to a sort of delirium, as if she had lost touch with reality. As he had done with Gross, he altered the initial diag-
nosis of hysteria—with which Freud had agreed—to that of a hysterical psychosis (Cromberg, 2014).
The damage caused by this attitude of Jung's is incalculable both to those who suffered directly from this abuse
of diagnostic power and to the very history of psychoanalysis. After her break with Jung, Spielrein managed to main-
tain a position in the Viennese circle, though she was later ignored. As Cromberg (2014) put it, “imprisoned in a false
diagnosis of psychosis or schizophrenia . . . it is ensured that nothing changes and her avant‐garde work, as well as
her pioneering role in psychoanalysis, remain forgotten” (p. 107).
6 of 13 CHECCHIA

In Gross's case, the consequences were even more serious. Jung knew that, since Gross had been exposed to
anarchism in 1905, he had been in intense conflict with his father. Hans Gross, the father of criminology, a defender
of the degeneration theory and a major supporter of the removal of degenerates from society, could not himself have
a degenerate son. He therefore sought a way to take control of his son's life. A few months before Otto was admitted
to the Burghölzli, Hans had asked Jung, Bleuler, and Freud not only to detox his son but also to give him a diagnosis
that would allow Hans to obtain legal rights over him. Following the already known outcome of the mutual analysis of
Gross and Jung, Bleuler sent Hans Gross a letter with the following opinion:

Concerning our opinion of the mental state of your Herr Dr. Otto Gross it is to be mentioned that Dr. Jung,
who carried out the special analytic treatment, has reached the conviction that it is a question of an actual
mental disturbance, and one which in principle is incurable, i.e. dementia praecox. The probable
development will be that pathological character traits will surface much more acutely in conjunction
with actual symptoms of the mental illness, i.e. relational and persecutory ideations, possible illusions of
grandeur and others, and hallucinations . . .. Even without assuming dem. praec., and only a severe
psychopathology instead, the prognosis is rather gloomy. It is certainly to be expected that the Herr
Doctor will be unable to sustain himself . . .. Without further aggravating facta, one should not proceed
with an enforced internment, as such measures, if it is a case of dementia praecox (which is highly
probable), the transfer to a closed institution is to be delayed for as long as possible, since experience
has shown that institutionalization usually has an adverse effect on such states . . .. As far as his post
as unpaid lecturer is concerned, it will probably have to be revoked . . .. Unfortunately we are unable to
give any further advice to you but to leave Herr Doctor to remain free until fate on its own creates a
situation that makes institutional care unavoidable. (Bleuler, 1908, cited in Heuer, 2017a, p. 80)

Thus, Jung argued before Bleuler that Otto Gross suffered from an “incurable actual mental disturbance,” demen-
tia praecox, which made him “unable to sustain himself.” Bleuler passed this on to Hans, at least recommending that
Otto remained free, but giving room for him to be hospitalized in the future. With this letter, Bleuler and Jung pro-
vided Hans Gross with, if not an ultimate resource for denying Otto his civil rights, a great instrument of power to
continue to persecute him.
A week before he ran away, knowing that he would be branded and that this would have serious consequences,
Otto Gross asked Freud, through his wife, Frieda, to be transferred to another hospital. Five years after his escape,
when he was compulsorily admitted to another institution, he told some psychiatrists in the service of his father:

When I realized that I was no longer being understood, I did not want to stay [at Burghölzli]. I knew that I
was listed with the diagnosis dementia praecox, and I knew that I would have no future, once the
psychiatrists there would write their report. Therefore I decided to escape in any case . . . I knew that
friends (anarchists) who would give me money were waiting for me in Zurich. (Gross quoted in Heuer,
2017a, p. 78)

After escaping from Burghölzli, Gross spent the rest of his short life as a nomad, moving from one place to
another in Europe, fleeing the police who pursued him at the request of his own father. For Jung and Freud, he
became a threat to the analytic cause. It is clear that his choosing the anarchist life and the use of drugs caused
him enough difficulties, but certainly his removal from the psychoanalytic circle did him too much harm—and for
what? If Jung played such a deliberate and active role in Gross's segregation, what were his motives?
It is possible to assume that at least three personal factors—three complexes, to use a term coined by Jung him-
self—all of them interrelated, contributed heavily to this abuse of authority. One of them is the sexual‐amorous com-
plex, which involved his wife, Sabina Spielrein, and Otto Gross. If Jung was already disturbed by his feelings for
Spielrein, after he had the experience of mutual analysis with Gross this conflict seems to have both intensified
and found a possible solution at the same time. To Freud, for example, Jung went so far as to say that “during the
whole business [of Spielrein] Gross's notions flitted about a bit too much in my head” (Jung, 1909 [4 June], in Freud
CHECCHIA 7 of 13

& Jung, 1976). We know that Gross was a defender of the sexual revolution and free love, and lived according to
these precepts; for example, while hospitalized, he encouraged the psychoanalyst Ernest Jones to analyze and have
sexual intercourse with his wife, Frieda. The excerpt from Spielrein's letter shows how Jung found in Gross a support
for his indulging in this relationship, as Gross managed the subject in a well‐resolved manner. Keeping Gross hospi-
talized would thus give Jung more time to resolve this conflict.
Another personal factor to be considered is Jung's father complex in relation to Freud. Several short excerpts
from their correspondence evidence this. Sometimes, simply in the way they referred to one another, for example,
when Jung addressed Freud: “I very reluctantly confess to you as my father.” (Jung, 1909 [21 June], in Freud & Jung,
1976). At other times, when speaking frankly about the analysis of their own conflicts, Jung's “father complex”
expressed itself more directly, sometimes linked to the search for approbation—“The reason for the resistance [to
writing letters to Freud more frequently] is my father‐complex, my inability to come up to expectations” (Jung,
1910 [20 February], in Freud & Jung, 1976)—or to the succession and inheritance of the power to command psycho-
analytical institutions and publications. Amid the turmoil with Spielrein, for example, Jung said:

Many thanks for your letter. I had to tell myself that if a friend or colleague of mine had been in the same
difficult situation I would have written in the same vein. I had to tell myself this because my father‐
complex kept on insinuating that you would not take it as you did but would give me a dressing‐down
more or less disguised in the mantle of brotherly love. For actually it is too stupid that I of all people,
your “son and heir,” should squander your heritage so heedlessly. (Jung, 1909 [12 June], in Freud &
Jung, 1976)

At this stage, Jung tended to position himself as the fearful and inhibited son before the figure of paternal
authority incarnated by Freud, who would either punish or bless him.
As approbation was given to Jung, this relationship reconfigured, especially when, after the imbroglio with Gross,
Freud revealed to Jung that he was to be his successor and started to address him as “my dear friend and heir” (Freud,
1908 [15 October], in Freud & Jung, 1976). Jung started feeling increasingly less submissive before such authority:
“That last evening with you has, most happily, freed me inwardly from the oppressive sense of your paternal author-
ity . . .. I hope I am now rid of all unnecessary encumbrances. Your cause must and will prosper” (Jung, 1909 [12 April],
in Freud & Jung, 1976). However, although Freud complained about Jung's inhibition, this change intensified the ten-
sion between them:

Believe me, there are no further misunderstandings between us, nor do I regard you as “vacillating” . . .. I am
merely irritated now and then—I may say that much, I trust—that you have not yet disposed of the
resistances arising from your father‐complex, and consequently limit our correspondence so much more
than you would otherwise. Just rest easy, dear son Alexander, I will leave you more to conquer than I
myself have managed, the psychiatry and the approval of the civilized world. (Freud, 1910 [3 June], in
Freud & Jung, 1976).

To Gross's statement of his freedom from Freud's authority, Freud replied: “It is strange that on the very same
evening when I formally adopted you as the eldest son and anointed you—in partibus infidelium—as my successor
and crown prince, you should have divested me of my paternal dignity” (Freud, 1909 [16 April], in Freud & Jung,
1976).
On the one hand, Freud did not want to lose this authority, which became evident to Jung during their journey to
the United States in 1910, when, at a moment of mutual analysis, Freud refused to continue his associations in order
not to lose the authority. On the other hand, as he realized this, Jung became more and more the rebellious son—like
Otto Gross—especially after taking the post of President at the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). While
Freud complained, “the first months of your reign, my dear son and successor, have not turned out brilliantly” (Freud,
1910 [10 August], in Freud & Jung, 1976), Jung gradually rebuffed ever more vigorously. In the end, when they were
about to break, he said:
8 of 13 CHECCHIA

If ever you should rid yourself entirely of your complexes and stop playing the father to your sons and
instead of aiming continually at their weak spots took a good look at your own for a change, then I will
mend my ways and eradicate at one stroke the vice of hesitating in relation to you. (Jung, 1912 [18
December], in Freud & Jung, 1976)

It was in the midst of this whole father complex that Otto Gross came into play, playing a role in another personal
complex of Jung's—the third one referred to above—the fraternal complex. Such was this fraternal love that Jung went
so far as to claim that Gross would be his twin brother—with the caveat, of course, of the dementia praecox. In the same
letter in which he announced to Freud Gross's escape and his new diagnosis, he said: “For me this experience is one of
the harshest in my life, for in Gross I discovered many aspects of my own nature, so that he often seemed to me like my
twin brother—except for the Dementia praecox” (Jung, 1908 [19 June], in Freud & Jung, 1976). What were these
aspects of his own nature that Jung discovered in Gross? Most likely, they were polygamy and a rebellious spirit.
This fraternal identification, in addition to having influenced the relationship with Sabina Spielrein, clashed with
the father complex at different but interconnected points: that of brotherly rivalry for the love and approbation of the
father and that of the inheritance. Even before Jung knew Gross more intimately, their “father” (Freud) had
established this rivalry. In addition to praising Gross, emphasizing his talent and his intelligence, a few months before
his hospitalization Freud wrote to Jung: “You really are the only one capable of making an original contribution;
except perhaps for O. Gross, but unfortunately his health is no help” (Freud, 1908 [25 February], in Freud & Jung,
1976). For someone who already sought approbation, such an affirmation, coming from the father himself, is a call
for fraternal rivalry. Had Jung initiated the analysis of Gross, in disregard of Freud, motivated by this rivalry? Most
likely Jung intended to get to know this “opponent” more closely and at the same time show Freud that he would
be able to treat him. This would leave him ahead of his future twin brother; after all, for Freud, “Gross is such a fine
man, with such a good mind, that your [analytical] work must be regarded as a benefit to society” (Freud [to Jung],
1908 [29 May], in Freud & Jung, 1976). This would be a great opportunity for Jung to show his full value to Freud,
and, therefore, he could not fail.
The outcome is well known: confronted with failure, Jung defended himself by labeling Gross psychotic. It is clear,
therefore, that Jung came to use, more than once, the diagnosis of a patient as an instrument of defense in order to
guarantee his personal interests. All these complexes led Jung to exercise with Gross precisely what the latter fought
so hard against and called the will to power: the “need to make one's self prevail, at all costs and by all means” (Gross,
1920/2017c, p.192)—and, worst of all, Jung succeeded. Despite the signs of Jung not having overcome his complexes,
Jung became nevertheless the winner of this feud. Only four months after such an outcome, Freud first called him “my
dear friend and heir”. He later became the official “crown prince” and the President of the IPA.
We turn now to analyze the possible reasons for Freud's complicity. There are several indications that he noticed
that Jung had acted against Gross—or, at least, acted mistakenly. Why, then, would he have connived against Gross?
Why did Freud not seek to help him? Why did he keep him out of the psychoanalytic circle, despite continuing to
admire his work and to respect him personally? After reading Gross's book on psychopathic inferiorities, he confessed
to Jung: “Too bad, the man has a good mind!” (Freud, 1909 [6 March], in Freud & Jung, 1976) and a few months later:
“I have too much respect for Otto Gross” (Freud, 1909 [6 July], in Freud & Jung, 1976).
It is possible to list some reasons for Freud's keeping Gross at a distance. First, there was Gross's problem with
drugs. Freud had already told Jung: “one's judgment of a man is bound to be uncertain as long as he uses drugs to
overcome his resistances” (Freud, 1908 [29 May], in Freud & Jung, 1976,). After Gross's escape, he stated: “he is
addicted and can only do great harm to our cause” (Freud, 1908 [30 June], in Freud & Jung, 1976). Jung retransmitted
this “prescription” to Jones in a letter in February 1909: “In any case the extremism which Gross preaches is definitely
wrong and dangerous for the whole cause” (quoted in Heuer, 2017a, p. 82). Freud was well aware of the damage
caused by cocaine. Long before he invented psychoanalysis, he had been one of the first proponents of the substance
as a form of medical treatment, which had serious consequences for some of his patients. Probably this was another
reason why he would only take care of Gross's analysis after detoxification.
CHECCHIA 9 of 13

However, Freud seems to have been equally relieved that he did not have to undertake Gross's analysis:

I have a feeling that I should thank you most vigorously—and so I do—for your treatment of Otto Gross.
The task should have fallen to me but my egoism—or perhaps I should say my self‐defence mechanism—
rebelled against it” (Freud, 1908 [21 June], in Freud & Jung, 1976)

Why would it be an act of egoism or a defense mechanism not to treat him analytically? A month earlier, he had
told Jung that it had been better for him that the analytic treatment had been started by Jung for egoistic reasons, for
he was obliged to sell his time and he no longer had the same energy. But would that justify the recourse to the
defense mechanism? Could there be other hidden motivations?
A complicating factor was the fact that Freud personally knew Hans Gross, who enjoyed considerable prestige in
Austria, being known as the father of modern criminology. He had even published an article by Freud in the magazine
he ran. Hans was one of the first to consider the psychological aspects of crime, but he was a strong supporter of the
degeneration theory: that madmen, perverts, thieves, or misfits should be excluded from society. His own son, how-
ever, in discovering psychoanalysis and anarchism, became the embodied representation of the degenerate.
Hans wanted at all costs to control Otto, as his own prestige was at stake. For him, there would be no better
doctor to “cure” his son of degeneracy than Freud, since he was one of the very few authorities that Otto still
respected, although not submitting to this authority. For Freud, however, there could be no more delicate situation:
on the one hand, he recognized and admired the genius of Otto Gross and wanted to help him; on the other hand, in
treating him, Freud would fall into a conflict of interests. Maintaining relations with a man of prestige like Hans could
be beneficial to the psychoanalytic cause, but the results of Otto's analysis could compromise this relationship. It is
not difficult to imagine Freud's relief when he learned that Jung had meddled in the story and taken charge of Otto's
analysis, and this could be the reason for his egoism and self‐defense.
Even if Freud had not been an acquaintance of Hans's, Otto's eccentric life, quite consistent with the anarchist
principles, would surely be a major problem and a reason for Freud to exclude him from the psychoanalytic circle. For
Freud, seeking to consolidate and expand psychoanalysis in society, to have one of its main representatives involved
in various “scandals”—the practice of free love, which produced children from different relationships; the friendship
with anarchists who participated in orgies and plundered commercial establishments; his nomadic life resulting from
the conflicts with his father and in which he only managed to practice psychoanalysis in coffee‐houses and restau-
rants—could form the basis for attacks on psychoanalysis.
In addition to his personal engagement with the anarchist movement, Gross's proposition that psychoanalysis
itself had a program of revolutionary action was something Freud objectively opposed. Gross presented this proposal
as early as 1908, a few weeks before being admitted to the Burghölzli, at the First International Congress of Psycho-
analysis (Salzburg). At the time, Freud responded to everyone present: “we are doctors, and doctors we shall remain”
(Freud, 1908, quoted in Gross, 1913/2017aa, p. 89). Twenty‐two years later, in breaking with Wilhelm Reich—another
psychoanalyst who linked psychoanalysis with politics in the late 1920s—Freud also stated: “It is not our purpose, or
the purpose of our existence, to save the world . . .. I am a scientist. I have nothing to do with politics” (Freud, 1930,
quoted in Reich, 1975, p. 58). It is unquestionable that Freud was a revolutionary scientist and his work, which does
not sidestep political issues, remains revolutionary, but he stood against this specific form of political engagement
(presenting proposals for reform) in psychoanalysis; in that sense, Gross would once again be an embarrassment.
As to the politics of the expansion and institutionalization of psychoanalysis, it is possible to say that Freud was
not only supportive, but also considerably engaged. This is probably the main reason Freud was condescending to
Jung in the imbroglio with Gross. At that time, the creator of psychoanalysis was already concerned with the devel-
opment of his creation. The early years of intense attacks and isolation from the medical community had passed, and
Freudian theory was gaining more followers. Therefore, it was necessary to take care of the transmission of psycho-
analysis, its consolidation in the medical community and its expansion into society. At the same time, Freud sought to
find a successor, believing that it would not be long before he died—he believed that he would die at age 62, that is,
in 1918; so definition on inheritance could not be postponed. Nobody in the Vienna circle seemed to him fit to take
10 of 13 CHECCHIA

on this burden, and outside of it, in the first decade of the twentieth century, only Gross and Jung were interesting
options. With Gross out of the competition, Jung emerged as the best choice: although he was sometimes hesitant to
say that the etiology of neuroses was always sexual, he defended psychoanalysis in medical congresses, wrote very
clear and didactic propaganda texts, and, in addition, was one of the only non‐Jewish psychoanalysts. Hence, Freud
first gave Jung the direction of the Jahrbuch, the first journal of psychoanalytic publications, and at the Nuremberg
Congress in 1910 he defended Jung's election to the presidency of the IPA.
In short, all these factors led Freud to want to dissociate Gross from the psychoanalytic cause. Active efforts to
make that happen are abundant. First, his name and contributions were removed from the report of the Salzburg
Congress, published one year after the foundation of the IPA. The Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, how-
ever, prove Gross's presence as well as that of his wife. Many years later, when the standard edition of Freud's com-
plete works was published, the reference to a Gross text in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (Freud, 1905/
1996) was removed, and the name of Gross was removed from the onomastic index. The consequences of this are
well known: after being segregated, over time Gross was forgotten.

3 | C O N C L U S I O N : D A M A G E TO TH E P S Y C H O A N A L Y T I C C A U S E I T S E L F

This is not to deny the difficulties Gross brought to the psychoanalytic cause at that time. However, I suggest that it is
a contradiction that a community of psychoanalysts is intolerant of one who thinks and acts differently from
established standards and in accordance with the ethics of his or her own singularity; and that there are other means
of dealing with the problem. The struggle for the cause does not justify such acts of violence: segregation and oblivion.
The damage caused by this kind of advocacy strategy, used by both Jung and Freud (and other psychoanalysts in
their wake), were and are immeasurable not only for Otto Gross, whose life was and whose memory continues to be
directly affected, but also for the psychoanalytic community itself. The exclusion of dissidents brings about a loss for
psychoanalysis itself because it is in the tension between differences that it is enriched and renewed. Did Freud him-
self not often use this tension to elaborate and defend certain theoretical and clinical positions?
In the case of Otto Gross, a very rich debate about the ideas of a truly interesting and original thinker is lost; a
debate about a pioneering psychoanalyst who constantly provokes us to find in ourselves the will to power and to
analyze its effects, to recognize the principle of authority and the patriarchal culture in its most diverse configura-
tions. His thinking and life activate us to think how psychoanalytic institutions themselves reproduce the patriarchal
model not only through their hierarchical structure, but also via the enactment of a series of normative rules. Anyone
who does not follow the rules or even the leader's ideas is punished or segregated. This was also the case with other
first‐generation psychoanalysts (Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Stekel, Wilhelm Reich, Otto Fenichel, Otto Rank, among
others), as well as with the following generations. To name a famous case, Jacques Lacan was excommunicated from
the IPA on the grounds of not following the technical rule about the time of sessions—which should be 50 minutes.
The history of the IPA and other institutions is full of such cases.
That is why the publication of Gross's texts can be referred to—as Heuer (2017b) did in the presentation of the
Brazilian compilation of Gross's work—as a return of the repressed. Otto Gross, the first psychoanalyst in history to
be segregated and forgotten, was the one who from the outset drew attention to the principle of authority, to the will
to power existing in each person, to the importance of freeing ourselves from this principle, and to the role of psy-
choanalysis in this process of liberation. His writings and his history bring to light the truth that psychoanalysts them-
selves make use of the principle of authority to satisfy their own will to power.
The case of Otto Gross thus poses an ethical question for psychoanalysts at various levels: (a) on the use of the
principle of authority in its different forms, from the small suggestions made in the course of an analysis to the cynical
use of the instrument of power that is the diagnosis; (b) on how to deal with so‐called “dissidents,” especially those
who continue to practice psychoanalysis outside established institutions or canons; and (c) on how to write the his-
tory of psychoanalysis.
CHECCHIA 11 of 13

This third point, little discussed here, is worth developing a little more, as it may help us to understand why the
historians of psychoanalysis have often forgotten Gross. This forgetfulness also relates to the reproduction of patri-
archal power, since supporting the principle of authority in psychoanalytic institutions requires that the history of
these outcast psychoanalysts be suppressed. It is a way of writing history that, as Heuer (2017a) reminded us, Erich
Fromm called “Stalinist”: dissidents are purged of history or pejorative labels are used to disqualify them. Alterna-
tively, as Ferro said (1977/2010), it is a “history [that] only preserves from History what legitimizes the power of
those who govern”. (p. 85) Ferro called this type of history “general History” or “official History,” which is based on
a selection of information that follows a hierarchical principle, in which institutional documents have more value than
unofficial documents (correspondences, reports, witnesses, etc.).
Unfortunately, this is what Roudinesco also did in her work (Roudinesco, 2016). She is obviously a historian
who has written very important works on psychoanalysis, always seeking to defend it from detractors. However,
probably and precisely because of her defense of the psychoanalytic cause, the author omitted a series of impor-
tant pieces of information from the history of Freud and his disciples. She did not deny, if truth be told, that Freud
“was always very unjust to those who, with their excesses, imprinted a different face to his doctrine” (Roudinesco,
2014/2016, p. 161), but still chose not to tell such stories in more detail—thereby failing to remedy the injustices
committed by Freud and restore the image of the dissenters. Moreover, in the case of Otto Gross, she selected
primarily the information that denigrates his image. She stated, for example, that Kafka was perspicacious and
made a more penetrating description of Gross by saying that he reminded him of the affliction of the disciples
of Christ at the feet of the Crucified, but she omitted that Kafka himself had said that Gross was like that certainly
not without good reason.
This way of writing history is also violent, even if justified by the necessity to defend the psychoanalytic
cause—perhaps this is why non‐psychoanalytic historians, precisely because they do not have to commit them-
selves to the cause, portray the dissidents and forgotten ones of psychoanalysis more faithfully. Yes, there still
are detractors and opponents of psychoanalysis, but psychoanalysis is already consolidated enough to be able to
defend itself and to write its history in other ways. History, as Gagnebin (2009) very well stated, “must transmit
the unmentionable, keep alive the memory of the nameless, and be faithful to the dead who could not be buried”
(p. 47). Its task, she said:

is highly political: to fight against oblivion and rejection is also to fight against the repetition of horror
(which, unfortunately, is constantly reproduced). A task that is equally ethical and, in a broader sense,
specifically psychic: the historian's words help to bury the dead from the past and to dig a grave for
those who have been deprived of one: a work of mourning that must help us, the living, to remember
the dead in order to live better today. Thus, the concern for the truth of the past is completed by the
demand for a present that, too, may be true. (p. 47)

The story of Otto Gross can help us to live better and to practice psychoanalysis better. In addition, his ideas,
too, can help us fight the violence stemming from the patriarchal structure and the principle of authority in all its
aspects and dimensions. Let us then hope that he will have some place in the history of psychoanalysis and in the
psychoanalytic and political debates of today.

RE FE R ENC ES
Anonymous (n.d.). Otto Gross—Biographische daten [Otto Gross—biographical data]. Washington, DC: Bollingen Archives,
Library of Congress.

Anz, T. (1978). Zwischen Freud und Schwabing. Otto Gross, ein vergessener Kulturrevolutionär im Wilhelminischen
Deutschland [Between Freud and Schwabing. Otto Gross, a forgotten cultural revolutionary in Wilhelmine Germany].
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 35, 100–101.

Carotenuto, A. (1984). Diário de uma secreta simetria: Sabina Spielrein entre Jung e Freud [Diary of a secret symmetry: Sabina
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Cromberg, R. U. (Ed.) (2014). Sabina Spielrein: uma pioneira da psicanálise [Sabina Spielrein: a pioneer of psychoanalysis]. São
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CHECCHIA 13 of 13

Marcelo Checchia gained his Master of Clinical Psychology from the Universidade de
São Paulo in 2004 and his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the same university in
2012—with a sandwich internship at the University of Toulouse. Today he is a postdoc-
toral fellow in Clinical Psychology at the University of São Paulo (laboratory psychoanal-
ysis, society and politics). He is the author of O sujeito e a adolescência [The subject and
adolescence] (2002/2014) and Poder e política na clínica psicanalítica [Power and politics
in the psychoanalytic clinic] (2015) (finalist for the Jabuti Award, 2016); editor of
Combate à vontade de potência [Combat at will of power] (2016) (finalist for the Jabuti
Award, 2017) and Atas da Sociedade Psicanalítica de Viena [Acts of the Vienna Psychoan-
alytic Society], as well as co‐editor of the Brazilian edition of The Works of Otto Gross (2017). He additionally con-
ducts research on the different interfaces between psychoanalysis and politics.

How to cite this article: Checchia M. Otto Gross: A case of exclusion and oblivion in the history of psycho-
analysis. Psychother Politics Int. 2018;e1469. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppi.1469