Volume 35, Number 6 · April 14, 1988
The Mystery of Max Eitingon
By Theodore H. Draper
Dr. Max Eitingon was one of Sigmund Freud's most devoted and valued colleagues. In 1907, he came from Switzerland, where he was studying, to see Freud—the first, as Freud later put it, 'to reach the lonely man' from another country.[1] Freud did not take to him immediately but once convinced of Eitingon's dedication he received him into his inner circle.[2] In 1919, when that strange 'secret council' was formed 'composed of the best and most trustworthy among our men,' Freud himself proposed Eitingon as the sixth of the seven members.[3] By 1922, after an association of almost a decade and a half, Freud wrote to him that his acceptance in Freud's inner circle had not come easily but 'ever since [I] have allowed you to render me every kind of service, imposed on you every kind of task.'[4] Since his death in 1943, Max Eitingon has gone down in the history of psychoanalysis as one of its commemorated 'pioneers.'[5]
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