Austrian Association for Individual Psychology

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The Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP) was founded in 1912 by Alfred Adler , making it one of the oldest depth psychological associations. In addition to the subject-specific training to become an individual psychological analyst, the association is dedicated to further training, scientific development and the practical application of individual psychology .

history

founding

Alfred Adler had been a member of Sigmund Freud's Psychological Wednesday Society since 1902 and thus one of Freud's first companions. In 1908 he became the first chairman of the newly founded Vienna Psychoanalytical Association . Nevertheless, his increasingly independent theories led to a break between Adler and Freud in 1911.

In 1912, Adler founded a new psychoanalytic association, the Association for Free Psychoanalytic Research . In addition to Alfred Adler, Carl Furtmüller , Margarete Hilferding , Franz and Gustav Grüner , Paul Klemperer and David Ernst Oppenheim were among the founding members. A little later, Alexander Neuer , Stefan Maday , Leonhard Deutsch , Paul Schrecker , Erwin Wexberg and Robert Freschl joined them.

On September 27, 1913, the association was renamed the Association for Individual Psychology at a general meeting in order to distinguish itself from Freud and his circle. The Viennese association only existed de jure from 1926. In 1913/14 the association already had 68 full members. Club meetings took place every Thursday, initially in Adler's apartment, later in the histological lecture hall of the University of Vienna, but also in coffee houses such as the “Café Siller” or the “ Café Central ”.

The activities of the association were largely restricted by the beginning of the First World War , as most of the members were drafted. Adler also served temporarily as a military doctor at the front.

The flowering of individual psychology in the interwar period

The period between the two world wars can be seen as the heyday of Viennese individual psychology as a practical science and as a social reform movement. As a result of Adler's lively lecturing activities (e.g. at the Pedagogical Institute, in adult education centers and community centers, increasingly also abroad) and his commitment in the field of educational counseling , individual psychology experienced a strong influx of people who were active in pedagogy. In addition, the individual psychologists in the social democratically ruled “ Red Vienna ” had a multitude of opportunities to apply their concepts in practice, since Adler's theories such as the sense of community and his upbringing optimism could easily be combined with social democratic ideas. Many Viennese individual psychologists were close to social democracy. Furtmüller, for example, was able to promote individual psychological approaches in the school system due to his position in the school administration. B. through lectures by Adler and later by Ferdinand Birnbaum at the Pedagogical Institute of the City of Vienna .

The individual psychological pedagogy was decisive in the Viennese school reform . The prophylaxis of psychological undesirable developments was a focus of the Viennese individual psychologists. In 1925, a medical specialist group was formed in the association, which was headed by Rudolf Allers and Karl Nowotny , and a humanities specialist group (later the "Pedagogical Working Group"), which Oppenheim was in charge of. From 1926 diplomas were awarded for which theoretical and practical training was required. There were personnel changes in the Vienna Association because, on the one hand, many new members joined the association, but on the other hand, other members showed no interest in the new developments. Rudolf Allers, Oswald Schwarz , Viktor Frankl a . a. resigned or were expelled from the association. At that time, individual psychology was considered the most important psychological direction in Vienna. At times there were 28 individual psychological educational counseling centers. Numerous local groups also formed abroad.

With the beginning of Austrofascism and the ban on social democracy in 1934, the expansion of the Association for Individual Psychology came to a temporary end. Projects such as the individual psychological experimental school in the 20th district of Vienna were abolished at short notice, many members were arrested or forced to emigrate. The association was under constant police supervision and tried to escape repression by replacing social democrats active on the board with politically unaffected persons. The Viennese individual psychology experienced a further weakening by Adler's emigration to the USA in 1935 and his death in 1937.

National Socialism and World War II

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich, the Association for Individual Psychology was banned in January 1939. With the exception of Ferdinand Birnbaum, Karl Nowotny, Oskar Spiel and Franz Scharmer , most of the members were forced to flee. Two thirds of the active members had to emigrate by this time at the latest. Neuer, Hilferding, Oppenheim and a few others were murdered in concentration camps.

A “Vienna Working Group” of the “German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy” was founded, the term “community psychology” replaced “individual psychology”, and Birnbaum and Spiel saw themselves as “treating psychologists” in this context. During National Socialism, the remaining Viennese individual psychologists and psychoanalysts came together and held informal meetings in the apartment of the analyst August Aichhorn under the guise of a “working group” . There were illegal gatherings in Novotny's apartment that were purely individual psychological.

Development after the Second World War

Many of the emigrants did not return from exile, and so individual psychology in Vienna was unable to regain its original distribution after the war. In the meantime, the focus of individual psychological activities had shifted to the USA, where a large number of new local groups had formed. However, theory formation there took a different course than in the Austrian Association and other European groups, and research into unconscious processes was increasingly out of focus.

In October 1945, Birnbaum applied for reactivation of the Vienna Association, which was approved in early 1946. The first activities of members of the association consisted in establishing new educational counseling centers, setting up a psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic at the Maria-Theresien-Schlössel mental hospital as well as through lectures and training seminars in teacher training and the like. to tie in with individual psychological traditions before the war. A new individual psychological experimental school was set up and advice on references was offered.

However, interest in educational and educational counseling activities decreased; From the beginning of the 1950s, the focus of the association's activities was increasingly in the field of psychotherapeutic curative treatments and activities in the health sector.

Viennese individual psychologists were and are in university clinics, psychosocial institutions and advice centers, crisis intervention centers and the like. similar, partly in a leading position. For example, the individual psychologist Knut Baumgärtel was head of the Vienna Child Guidance Clinics for many years after the war. Club members acquired a high reputation u. a. dealing with psychosomatics, crisis intervention and suicide prevention ( Erwin Ringel , Gernot Sonneck ) as well as child and adolescent psychotherapy ( Martha Kos-Robes , Walter Spiel , Max H. Friedrich , Gertrude Bogyi ). In 1979 the association's area of ​​activity was expanded from Vienna to all of Austria. In this context, the association received its current name. The Alfred Adler Institute was founded in 1982 for the training and further education of psychotherapists and individual psychological advisors.

As a result of the Austrian Psychotherapy Act of 1990, the association was recognized as a psychotherapeutic training facility, and the training of individual psychological psychotherapists became a priority field of activity. Further training courses for "individual psychological child and adolescent psychotherapists" and "individual psychological group psychotherapists" were introduced. The chairmen of the association were Karl Nowotny , Friederike Friedmann , Erwin Ringel, who shaped the development of the association for around three decades (chairman and president from 1961 to 1989), Günther Ratzka , Max H. Friedrich, Gertrude Bogyi, Werner Leixnering and Margot Matschiner -Zollner . The ÖVIP is a founding member of the International Association for Individual Psychology.

Current

The ÖVIP is committed to the depth psychological tradition of individual psychology. The association is based in Vienna (Hernalser Hauptstrasse 15, 1170 Vienna). It currently has more than 150 full members. The association pursues a number of projects that are not only dedicated to the psychotherapeutic application of individual psychology, but also tie in with the pedagogical and educational counseling tradition before the Second World War.

In 1996, for example, the Alfred Adler Institute took part in the establishment of the Working Group on Psychoanalytic Pedagogy (APP). In 2003, the Individual Psychological Center was established, which, as an adult education facility, organizes series of lectures for experts and interested laypeople and became the sponsor of the “Outpatient Clinic for Children and Young People in Crisis Situations - the Buoy”, which specializes in crisis intervention in children and adolescents. The association is also involved in the training of individual psychological counselors in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia.

In July 2011 the ÖVIP hosted the 25th International Congress for Individual Psychology, which took place in Vienna on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the separation of Adler from Sigmund Freud.

literature

  • Almuth Bruder-Bezzel: History of individual psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-45834-7 .
  • Henry F. Ellenberger: The Discovery of the Unconscious: History and Development of Dynamic Psychiatry from the Beginnings to Janet, Freud, Adler and Jung. Diogenes, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-257-21343-3 .
  • Johannes Gstach: From the “open movement for everyone” to the “association for psychotherapeutic specialists”? On the history of the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP) and the change in its self-image. In: Journal for Individual Psychology. 30, 2, 2005, ISSN  0342-393X , pp. 151-170.
  • Johannes Gstach: The Austrian individual psychology under the swastika and in reconstruction. In: Journal for Individual Psychology. 31, 1, 2006, ISSN  0342-393X , pp. 32-51.
  • Bernhard Handlbauer: The history of the development of the individual psychology of Alfred Adler. Geyer, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-85090-108-4 .
  • Bernhard Handlbauer: 'Learn English hard!' The emigration of Alfred Adler and the Viennese individual psychology. In: Friedrich Stadler (ed.): Displaced reason II. Emigration and exile of Austrian science. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-224-16525-1 , pp. 268–287.
  • Beate Klocker: Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP). In: Gerhard Stumm, Pia Deimann, Elisabeth Jandl-Jager, Germain Weber (eds.): Psychotherapy: Training in Austria. Falter-Verlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85439-143-9 , pp. 164-172.
  • Manfred Skopec: On the history of the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology . In: Journal for Individual Psychology. 9, 1, 1984, ISSN  0342-393X , pp. 52-63.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Almuth Bruder-Bezzel: History of Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, p. 37.
  2. ↑ Almuth Bruder-Bezzel: History of Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, p. 86.
  3. ↑ Bernhard Handlbauer: The history of the development of the individual psychology of Alfred Adler. Geyer, Vienna 1984.
  4. ↑ a b c Bernhard Handlbauer: 'Learn English diligently!' The emigration of Alfred Adler and the Viennese individual psychology. In: Friedrich Stadler (ed.): Displaced reason II. Emigration and exile of Austrian science. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-224-16525-1 , pp. 268–287.
  5. ↑ Almuth Bruder-Bezzel: History of Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, p. 62ff.
  6. ↑ Almuth Bruder-Bezzel: History of Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, p. 226.
  7. ↑ Almuth Bruder-Bezzel: History of Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, p. 227.
  8. ↑ John Gstach: The Austrian individual psychology in the Third Reich and in the reconstruction. In: Journal for Individual Psychology. 31, 1, 2006, p. 36ff.
  9. ↑ a b John Gstach: From the "open movement for all" to the "Association for psychotherapeutic specialists"? On the history of the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP) and the change in its self-image. In: Journal for Individual Psychology. 30, 2, 2005, pp. 151-170.
  10. ↑ John Gstach: The Austrian individual psychology in the Third Reich and in the reconstruction. In: Journal for Individual Psychology. 31, 1, 2006, p. 42.
  11. ↑ Beate Klocker: Austrian Association for Individual Psychology (ÖVIP). In: Gerhard Stumm, Pia Deimann, Elisabeth Jandl-Jager, Germain Weber (eds.): Psychotherapy: Training in Austria. Falter-Verlag, Vienna 1995, pp. 164–172.
  12. ^ Minutes of the general assembly of the Austrian Association for Individual Psychology on May 3, 2010.