Abraham Brill

thumb| Abraham Arden Brill (October 12, 1874 – March 2, 1948) was an Austrian-born American psychiatrist who spent almost his entire adult life in the United States. He was the first psychoanalyst to practice in the United States and the first translator of Sigmund Freud into English. Quotes Mrs. Walter D. Lamar, eulogizing Jefferson Davis at a delegates’ convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, ended her speech as follows: “Let the world know the wisdom, the kindness, the justice of the great and only President of the Confederate States of America—Abraham Lincoln.” Mrs. Lamar was very embarrassed. But her slip was based on the fact that in her unconscious she was in doubt whether the praise she was heaping on the President of the Confederacy was really justified. The image of the Great Emancipator obtruded itself, and she unwittingly said what she did not wish to say consciously. Her slip was based on what we call the “narcissism of small differences” or the desire to feel important and better than one’s neighbors. This feeling is particularly strong when one must espouse a cause of which one is not convinced. Basic Principles of Psychoanalysis (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1949), p. 80. Quotation from The New York Times (October 7, 1937). The key phrase “narcissism of small differences” is elsewhere attributed to Freud. External links Category:Psychiatrists from the United States Category:Academics from the United States Category:Columbia University alumni Category:New York University faculty Category:People from Austria Category:1874 births Category:1948 deaths