Annemarie Dührssen

Annemarie Luise Christine Dührssen (born November 22, 1916 in Berlin-Lankwitz , † July 25, 1998 in Berlin ) was a German psychiatrist , psychotherapist and specialist journalist . As a psychoanalyst , she particularly campaigned for communication between psychoanalysis and psychiatry . It is thanks to her that in 1967 analytical psychotherapy was included in the catalog of benefits of the statutory health insurance if there was an indication .

Live and act

Origin and career

Annemarie Dührssen grew up as the daughter of a lawyer in sheltered and well-off circumstances. Her grandfather Alfred Jacobus Dührssen was the founder of modern surgical gynecology and was responsible for the first vaginal caesarean section (1895) and the first sterile uterine tamponade.

She attended the modern language Oberlyceum in Berlin and passed her Abitur there in 1935. She then studied medicine at the universities of Berlin, Bonn and Munich. After completing her studies in 1940, she trained as a specialist in internal medicine and became a member of the Reich Medical Association and the National Socialist People's Welfare .

From 1942 to 1945 Annemarie Dührssen continued her education in psychoanalysis, in which she worked closely with Harald Schultz-Hencke and Werner Kemper . From 1945 she trained as a specialist in neurology and psychiatry. She then worked at the Berlin Central Institute for Psychogenic Diseases , which later became the Institute for Psychogenic Diseases of the Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse Berlin, whose overall management she took over in 1965. In the same year she also became a lecturer and training analyst at the Institute for Psychotherapy in Berlin, which had been founded on May 9, 1947.

In 1976 Annemarie Dührssen received the chair for psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy at the Charlottenburg Clinic of the Free University of Berlin . However , she continued to pursue her duties at the Institute for Psychogenic Diseases . In 1985 she retired.

Annemarie Dührssen's grave in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

In addition, she was an honorary professor at the University of Education in Berlin and the University of Kiel as well as co-editor of the renowned specialist publications Zeitschrift für Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychoanalysis and Practice of Child Psychology and Child Psychiatry , which she co-founded. She also served as a member of numerous specialist committees, such as a reviewer for the WHO and the DFG and an expert on the psychiatry enquête . After all, she was also an honorary member and from 1971 to 1975 chairwoman of the German Psychoanalytic Society (DPG) founded in 1910 .

Annemarie Dührssen died in July 1998 at the age of 81 in Berlin. Her grave is in the state's own cemetery in Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend (grave location: II-Ur 6-522).

Scientific work

In 1954 Dührssen published the textbook Psychogenic Diseases in Children and Adolescents , which developed into a standard work in child and adolescent psychotherapy. With this extensive work, she pursued “an ambitious goal: taking into account the problems of developmental biology and developmental psychology, a description of the development and severity of psychogenic diseases in childhood and adolescence should be developed on the basis of Freudian psychoanalysis and presented in an understandable form.” She dropped old, narrowly defined libido theory and its sexualistic exaggeration “in Freud , explained the author in the introduction to the work, but took into account the findings of Alfred Adler , Fritz Künkel and their own teacher Harald Schultz-Hencke.

In 1965 Dührssen presented a study on the effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatments and thus created the prerequisites for the inclusion of depth psychology-oriented psychotherapy in the catalog of benefits of statutory health insurances.

Annemarie Dührssen developed the "dynamic psychotherapy", a special form of depth psychologically oriented psychotherapy. This is based on the everyday experience of the clients. Therapist and client agree on a specific conflict to be dealt with. This happens through external objects and less through the therapeutic relationship. Transmission phenomena are only discussed if they have a negative impact on therapy.

In 1994 Annemarie Dührssen published her last extensive work: A Century of Psychoanalytic Movement in Germany . In it she described, among other things, the behavior of the DPG and some of its members during and after the Nazi dictatorship. For example, she stated about Carl Müller-Braunschweig , chairman of the teaching committee of the DPG from 1933 to 1936 and member of the board:

"Unfortunately, it was said [...] again and again and again and again that the group around Müller-Braunschweig had behaved politically impeccably in the Third Reich. [...] These allegations were so obviously false and - especially at that time - so consistently known to be untrue that one can only be amazed at the audacity ".

Apparently, Annemarie Dührssen anticipated criticism from the outset when she settled the Nazi past of some of the greats in psychoanalysis and the DPG, because she also wrote:

“Now I am prepared for the fact that the considerations just presented will appear very offensive to today's readership. But nothing is more urgent than the application of psychoanalytic knowledge to one's own group. One can be certain that an initial insincerity through stubborn cover-up and concealment will ultimately be passed on to the next generation as an oppressive inheritance ”.

Criticism was not lacking, also because on the one hand she accused individual psychoanalysts of covering up their Nazi past, but on the other hand expressed the view that “German psychoanalysis was able to free itself from the restrictions of a specific Jewish science during National Socialism”.

Dührssen's publication was accused of “latent anti-Semitism”, primarily due to its meticulous search for “specifically Jewish parts” in the work of Jewish psychoanalysts, particularly with reference to Sigmund Freund, and the Jewish roots of psychoanalysis.

The anti-Semitism researcher Wolfgang Benz rates the controversial publication as follows:

“It will not be possible to interpret Annemarie Dührssen's speculations, claims and conclusions as manifest hostility towards Jews. But they are exemplary of the attitudes of authors of scientific prose who have latent anti-Semitism as a background, to reinforce prejudices and convey stereotypes about 'the Jews' or 'the Jewish'. This ultimately also eliminates manifest hostility towards Jews ”.

The then chairman of the DPG stated after the publication of A Century of Psychoanalytic Movement in Germany that “most members [of the DPG] are outraged by the book and overwhelmingly reject the views it contains”. After heated controversy, Annemarie Dührssen resigned from the DPG in 1997.

Publications (selection)

• Psychogenic diseases in children and adolescents . Publishing house for medical psychology, Göttingen 1954.
• Children in care and foster children in their development. A comparative study on 150 children in the parental home, home and foster family . Publishing house for medical psychology, Göttingen 1958.
• The biographical anamnesis from a depth psychological perspective . Publishing house for medical psychology in the publishing house Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981, ISBN 978-3-525-45660-6 .
• Dynamic psychotherapy . Springer, Berlin a. a. 1988, ISBN 978-3-540-19240-4 .
• A century of psychoanalytic movement in Germany. Psychotherapy under the influence of Freud . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 978-3-525-45772-6 .

Literature (selection)

• Wolfgang Benz : What is anti-Semitism? Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-52212-3 . P. 104ff.
• Manfred Berger : Annemarie Dührssen - your life and work. In: heilpaedagogik.de , H. 2, 2009, pp. 14-18.
• Rolf Castell et al. a .: History of child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961 . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 978-3-525-46174-7 .
• Gerd Rudolf, Ulrich Rüger: Psychotherapy in social responsibility. Annemarie Dührssen and the development of psychotherapy . Schattauer, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-7945-3215-5 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
• Ulrich Rüger u. a .: In memoriam Annemarie Dührssen (1916–1998) . In: The neurologist . No. 5, 1999, pp. 482-483.
• Gerhard Stumm u. a. (Ed.): Personal dictionary of psychotherapy . Springer, Vienna and New York 2005, ISBN 978-3-211-83818-1 . Pp. 109-110.
• F. Winkler: Life and scientific work of the specialist in psychiatry and neurology, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Annemarie Dührssen with special consideration of her work in child and adolescent psychiatry. Dresden 1999. Unpublished diploma thesis.

Web links

• http://www.ppfi.de/buchbesp/duehrssen94.htm
• http://link.springer.com/10.1007%2Fs001150050467?from=SL
• http://www.jsbielicki.com/jsb.74.htm

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 485.
2. ^ Rolf Castell et al. a .: History of child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961 . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 978-3-525-46174-7 . P. 281f.
3. ↑ Carl Müller-Braunschweig . dpg-psa.de. Retrieved May 21, 2011.
4. ↑ Annemarie Dührssen: A Century of Psychoanalytic Movement in Germany. Psychotherapy under the influence of Freud . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 978-3-525-45772-6 . P. 210.
5. ^ Dührssen: A Century of Psychoanalytic Movement in Germany . P. 217.
6. ↑ Psychoanalysts in Germany . psychoanalytikerinnen.de. Retrieved May 21, 2011.
7. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: What is anti-Semitism? Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-52212-3 . P. 104ff.
8. ↑ Benz: What is anti-Semitism? P. 137.
9. ↑ Benz: What is anti-Semitism? P. 129.
10. ↑ Honorary Members . dpg-psa.de. Retrieved May 21, 2011.