“Why Is It That I See Everything Differently?” Reading a 1933 Letter From Paula Heimann To Theodor Reik

Abstract

A letter from Paula Heimann to her training analyst, Theodor Reik, written shortly before her emigration from Berlin to London, sheds light on some of the technical controversies and personal animosities that shaped psychoanalytic clinical discourse in the early 1930s, as well as on Heimann's subsequent development as a clinician. A close reading of this letter highlights several distinctive aspects of psychoanalytic training and demonstrates the transgenerational transmission of psychoanalytic ideas.