Clara Thompson was a leading representative of the cultural interpersonal school of psychoanalysis, sometimes known as the "neo-Freudians" that included Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Harry Stack Sullivan. Although psychoanalytic sectarianism once meant that "classical analysts" in the middle of the twentieth century viewed the neo-Freudians with the greatest suspicion and mistrust, they can be seen today for the innovative group of thinkers they were. Thompson's Psychoanalysis: Evolution and Development, first published in 1950, remains an enormously fair-minded discussion of the history of psychoanalytic theory and therapy. Written before the growth of Freud biographical studies, her historical reading of Freud's school still remains authoritative.
