Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute

The Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute (BPI) was founded in 1920 by Karl Abraham and Max Eitingon . Since 1970, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the old Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute, it has also been called the Karl Abraham Institute .

1920–1933: Polyclinic and educational institution

Origin and organization

Memorial plaque at the former location of the institute in Potsdamer Strasse in Tiergarten , from the Mit Freud series in Berlin

Memorial plaque at the former location Wichmannstrasse 10, in Berlin-Tiergarten

In his lecture at the Budapest Psychoanalytic Congress in September 1918, Sigmund Freud foresaw a time when psychoanalysis would no longer be reserved for the upper classes. In February 1920 the psychoanalytic outpatient clinic was opened in Berlin , the second facility of its kind. It also gave poorer patients access to psychoanalysis and was largely financed by Max Eitingon . In principle, anyone could come to the consultation. The final decision on admitting a patient and referring him to an analyst was made by Eitingon.

The motives for setting up a polyclinic were not just philanthropic . “Berlin has always been a stronghold of medical analysis. [...] In medicine, polyclinics (or clinics for the poor) were also places of training (and research). Doctors learned their trade on the poor. The pioneers of a newly emerging medical specialty - such as the Berlin neurologist Oppenheim - repeatedly secured their careers by creating their own outpatient departments and / or clinics, where they expanded and passed on their new specialist knowledge. [...] The outsider discipline psychoanalysis also followed this pattern. "

With the "world fame" of psychoanalysis that began after the First World War , the demand for treatments also increased. “And so there were enough doctors who wanted to learn psychoanalysis, and reports from Berlin keep coming up. [...] In short: Psychoanalysis à la Abraham filled a gap in the market in medical training and care, at a high professional level. "

At the polyclinic, permanent assistants, trainee candidates and external analysts temporarily staying in Berlin analyzed. Serious cases were often referred to members of the Berlin Psychoanalytical Association, for whom the 'unwritten law' applied to treat a patient free of charge.

In 1923 the polyclinic finally succeeded in expanding "into the institute that we had in mind from the start". Apart from the Budapest Institute, which had only existed for a short time in 1919, the Berlin Institute was the first psychoanalytic training institute in the world within the framework of the IPA. According to the training guidelines, a medical degree was a prerequisite for admission to the training. Exceptions were made for child analysis.

Many members of the Berlin Psychoanalytical Association “felt the need for personal analysis, but hesitated to reveal their secrets to a local psychoanalyst. The newly established psychoanalytic clinic also attracted a number of doctors who work there and wanted to learn psychoanalysis at the same time. As a result, Hanns Sachs was invited to come to Berlin from Vienna and specialize in the analysis of psychoanalysts, both established and beginners. So he became the first training analyst. "

The training analyzes were initially free, but this was soon abandoned. For candidates in need, the cost of the training analysis was financed as a loan from a scholarship fund. The scholarship fund benefited from the portion of the course fees that the lecturers were entitled to because they had waived them. The treatment for the normal patients was paid on the basis of their self-assessment. The institute also received funds from “self-taxation” of practicing analysts. The health insurances paid only a few hours of treatment, if at all. The institute did not receive any state funding.

The teaching committee established in March 1923 included Abraham, Eitingon, Karen Horney , Carl Müller-Braunschweig , Sachs and Ernst Simmel . "In 1924 Radó joined as the 7th member and in 1927, after the passing of Abraham, Alexander joined." The committee developed "Guidelines for teaching and training activities". “The oral preliminary discussion and correspondence with the applicants for the training, which required a lot of time and tact, was always Eitingon subjected to. In recent years he has been supported by Karen Horney and Sándor Radó. "Horney commented:" In the first guidelines, the concept of 'personal suitability' was completely absent. Various moments made it necessary to attach particular importance to him. "

The training analysis was followed by a two-year course, for which a compulsory “curriculum” had existed since 1927. The compulsory courses included special neuroses, Freud seminars, seminars on the technique of dream interpretation and seminars on the application of psychoanalysis to literature and art.

Since 1929 there has also been a curriculum for educators . Pedagogues did not do a training analysis, but attended the introductory courses together with the training candidates. Siegfried Bernfeld has offered special courses for teachers since 1926 . The advanced training candidates discussed their cases in the "technical seminar". In addition to the official teaching, there was a so-called “children's seminar” since 1924, organized by Otto Fenichel and Harald Schultz-Hencke . Younger analysts met there for a more informal discussion. Since 1929 there has been a group of Marxist psychoanalysts at the institute (Bernfeld, Fenichel, Erich Fromm , Edith Glück-Gyoömröi, Edith Jacobson , Barbara Lantos), which Wilhelm Reich joined in 1930 . The establishment of unofficial working groups was an expression of the pioneering spirit that prevailed even after the death of Abraham.

Through lectures outside the institute, e.g. For example, for kindergarten teachers, lawyers and general practitioners, attempts were made to reach a wider public.

Scientific focus

Freud described it as one of the institute's tasks “to perfect our knowledge of neurotic diseases and our therapeutic technique through application and testing under new conditions”. Fenichel found it “striking that in the consultation material the classic neurosis forms seemed to be progressively decreasing”. It was not possible to shorten the analyzes. According to Eitingon, the experience was "that seemingly shortened side paths usually only offer one guarantee, namely that of missing the main goal."

The ego-psychological writings of Freud and a number of lecturers at the institute were particularly intensively discussed .

The opening of the institute to various fields of practice was expressed in the establishment of various working groups. Franz Alexander and the defense attorney Hugo Staub found a “criminalistic working group”.

Significance for the history of psychoanalysis

In addition to those already mentioned, Theodor Reik and Melanie Klein also worked at the Berlin Institute . In 1927 Ernst Simmel founded the Tegel Castle Sanatorium , the world's first psychoanalytic clinic.

The Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute became a center of psychoanalysis with international reach in the 1920s. The fact that there was no courier service in Germany (unlike Austria) also contributed to the attractiveness. The three-part training (theoretical courses, training analysis, treatment of first patients under supervision [“control analysis ”]) was implemented at the Berlin institute for the first time , and later became the standard worldwide. Following the example of the Berlin institute, Helene Deutsch set up the Viennese teaching institute after a one-year study visit to Berlin. “At the beginning of the thirties - before and independently of Hitler's seizure of power - America recruited the main forces behind the Berlin education so that they could use their know-how in the creation of educational institutions in Chicago (Alexander, plus Horney), New York (Radó) and Boston (Sachs ) would apply. "

“Except for a few socialist doctors, the medical guild in Germany stood united against the new development. […] But - strangely enough - the psychoanalysts themselves wanted respectability. They wanted to establish themselves as part of the medical profession and believed that to achieve that goal they would need clinics, professional schools, and professional associations. The psychoanalytic institutions had been rather obscure institutions until then. "

- Siegfried Bernfeld

Freud expressly refused to "incorporate psychoanalysis into medicine". For him, psychoanalysis was a fundamental science. “For practical reasons, we have adopted the habit, also for our publications, of separating medical analysis from analysis applications. That is not correct. In reality, the dividing line runs between scientific analysis and its applications in the medical and non-medical fields. ”Abraham's approach, on the other hand, was medically shaped from the start, and non-medical members were only accepted into the Berlin Association as an exception. The Berlin institute contributed significantly to the medicalization of psychoanalysis. Even if non-doctors are now admitted to training as analysts, the (at least from Freud's point of view) one-sided focus on therapy continues to have an effect.

It is controversial whether the formalization of the training in psychoanalysis was clinically beneficial.

1933-1945

When the books were burned in Germany in 1933 , Freud's writings were also publicly burned. ("Against soul-fraying overestimation of instinctual life, for the nobility of the human soul! I hand over the writings of Sigmund Freud to the flame.") It owes the fact that psychoanalysis (albeit in a very limited form) was also practiced in National Socialist Germany that state authorities had also recognized their usefulness, as well as the ambition and the very far-reaching willingness to compromise of their non-Jewish German functionaries, as well as the family ties of Matthias Heinrich Göring , but also Freud's attitude, who opposed the action of the German functionaries (and Ernest Jones ' ) at least not vetoed.

According to the new regulations in 1933, Jews were no longer allowed to sit on the boards of scientific societies. Eitingon resigned in November 1933 and emigrated to Palestine . Most of the analysts emigrated to Austria or the USA. The board of directors of the German Psychoanalytic Society (DPG) was now made up of Felix Boehm and Carl Müller-Braunschweig . Müller-Braunschweig tried to make psychoanalysis attractive to the National Socialists with an article entitled “Psychoanalysis and Weltanschauung” in the National Socialist weekly “ Reichswart ”.

In 1935 the remaining Jewish members were urged to leave the DPG "voluntarily".

The remains of the BPI were incorporated into the newly founded German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy ("Göring Institute") in 1936 . Müller-Braunschweig, Harald Schultz-Hencke and Werner Kemper also worked there . In 1938 the DPG was dissolved.

Edith Jacobson became involved in the resistance , was arrested in 1935 and escaped in 1938. The psychoanalyst and resistance fighter John Rittmeister was arrested on September 27, 1942 and executed on May 13, 1943.

After 1945

In May 1945 Kemper and Schultz-Hencke founded the "Institute for Psychopathology and Psychotherapy". From Müller-Braunschweig's point of view, Schultz-Hencke had rushed ahead without “getting in touch with the older and more experienced colleagues and discussing the future of psychotherapy in Germany or Berlin with them”. In March 1946, Kemper and Schultz-Hencke founded the “Central Institute for Psychogenic Diseases of the Berlin Insurance Company ”. This means that non-medical therapists have also been recognized by the Berlin social security agency.

Schultz-Hencke had been banned from teaching at the institute before 1933 because of his deviations from classical psychoanalysis, but he refused to leave the German Psychoanalytic Society. “Müller-Braunschweig was increasingly devalued by the socially recognized Schultz-Hencke. The personal, theoretical and institutional contradictions between the two hardened. ”Finally, Müller-Braunschweig and a few colleagues founded the German Psychoanalytical Association (DPV) in June 1950 . She was accepted into the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPV). The institute headed by Müller-Braunschweig remained small. From 1950 to 1970, 34 psychoanalysts were trained, and in 1966 a polyclinical department was opened.

Schultz-Hencke died in 1953, Müller-Braunschweig in 1958. The DPG and the DPV have existed to this day as separate associations, but they are now cooperating. The DPG was only accepted into the IPA in 2001. On the homepage of the DPG there is talk of the “shame and disappointment about the lack of a moral line of integrity of many members of the DPG in the time of National Socialism”.

See also

• History of Psychoanalysis

literature

• Ten years at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. (Polyclinic and educational institution) . Newly published by the Berlin Institute of the German Psychoanalytic Association. With a foreword to the new edition by Anna Freud. Verlag Anton Hain, Meisenheim 1970 (first edition: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Vienna 1930).
• Perry Meisel, Walter Kendrick (ed.): Culture and psychoanalysis in Bloomsbury and Berlin. The letters of James and Alix Strachey, 1924–1925. Publishing house Internat. Psychoanalysis, Stuttgart 1995.
• Hans-Joachim Bannach: The scientific significance of the old Berlin psychoanalytical institute. In: Psyche. 23, 1969, pp. 242-254.
• Siegfried Bernfeld: About the psychoanalytic training (1952) (From the archive of psychoanalysis). In: Psyche. Volume 38, 1984, pp. 437-459.
• Geoffrey Cocks: Psychotherapy in the Third Reich — The Goering Institute. Oxford University Press, New York 1985. (based on his dissertation: Psyche and Swastika: neue deutsche Seelenheilkunde; 1933–1945, 1975)
• Geoffrey Cocks: Repressing, Remembering, Working Through. German Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, and the “Missed Resistance” in the Third Reich. In: The Journal of Modern History. 64, 1992: Supplement: Resistance Against the Third Reich, pp. S204-S216.
• Max Eitingon: Messages from the Berlin Institute. In: Intern. Z. Psya. 8, 1922, pp. 107, 393, 508.
• Max Eitingon: Meeting of the International Education Commission. In: Intern. Z. Psya. 15, 1929.
• Sigmund Freud: The question of lay analysis. (1926). In: Sigmund Freud: study edition supplementary volume. Treatment technique writings . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, pp. 275-349.
• H. Gekle, G. Kimmerle (ed.): History of psychoanalysis in Berlin. In: Lucifer-Amor. Vol. 7, no. 19, edition diskord, 1994.
• Ruth Kloocke, Elke Mühlleitner: Teaching or Learning? Siegfried Bernfeld and the "Pedagogical Working Group" at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. In: Lucifer Amor. Book 34: Psychoanalysis for Educators.
• Regine Lockot: Remembering and working through. On the history of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy under National Socialism . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1985.
• Regine Lockot: The Purification of Psychoanalysis. The German Psychoanalytic Society as reflected in documents and contemporary witnesses (1933–1951) . Ed. diskord, Tübingen 1994.
• Hans-Martin Lohmann (Ed.): Psychoanalysis and National Socialism. Contributions to processing an unresolved trauma . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1984.
• E. Lürßen: Personal considerations on the early days of psychoanalytic training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute from 1950 to 1965. In: Lucifer-Amor. Journal of the History of Psychoanalysis. 13, issue 26, 2000.
• Christiane Ludwig-Körner: Rediscovered - Psychoanalysts in Berlin . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 1999.
• G. Maetze: Psychoanalysis in Berlin from 1950 to 1970. In: Psyche. 25, 1971, pp. 269-286.
• G. Maetze, J. Friedeberg, G. Dahl (Red.): Psychoanalysis in Berlin. Contributions to history, theory and practice . Anton Hain, Meisenheim 1971.
• Ulrike May: The relationship between political conviction and analytical work, discussed on the basis of the Berlin essays by Edith Jacobson (1930–1937). In: Lucifer Amor. Issue 35: Edith Jacobson in Berlin. edition diskord, 2005.
• Thomas Müller: From Charlottenburg to Central Park West. Henry Lowenfeld and psychoanalysis in Berlin, Prague and New York . Publishing department of the Sigmund-Freud-Buchhandlung, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-9805317-5-9 .
• Klaus W. Oberborbeck: Child analysis in the environment of the Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute 1920 to 1933. In: Lucifer Amor. Issue 13: History of Psychoanalysis in Berlin. edition diskord, Tübingen 1994.
• Michael Schröter: On the early history of lay analysis. In: Psyche. 50, No. 12, 1996, pp. 1127-1175.
• Michael Schröter: "Becoming a Psychoanalyst: Family, Education and Employment of Edith Jacobssohn until the end of 1932". In: Ulrike May, Elke Mühlleitner (ed.): Edith Jacobssohn. You and the world of your objects. Life, work, memories . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2005, pp. 19–48.

Web links

Commons : Berliner Psychoanalytisches Institut  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute of the German Psychoanalytical Association, Karl Abraham Institute, branch of the International Psychoanalytic Association
• Homepage of the Institute of the German Psychoanalytical Society at the Berlin Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Festive meeting of the BPI memorial service ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Speech ( mp3 ; 738 kB) by Hans-Joachim Bannach, 1970.  
2. ↑ Sigmund Freud: Ways of Psychoanalytic Therapy . In: Sigmund Freud: Writings on treatment technology . Study edition supplementary volume, Frankfurt am Main, 1982, pp. 241–249.
3. ^ The first was the London Brunswick Square Clinic, which was founded independently of the International Psychoanalytic Association . See Schröter 1996, pp. 1162ff.
4. ↑ Schröter 1996, p. 1153f.
5. ↑ Schröter 1996, pp. 1155f.
6. ^ Max Eitingon to Freud, February 27, 1923; quoted in Schröter 1996, p. 1167.
7. ↑ Bernfeld 1952, p. 443.
8. ↑ Ten Years 1970, p. 16.
9. ↑ Ten Years 1970, p. 27.
10. ↑ Ten Years 1970, p. 49.
11. ^ On this pioneering spirit, see Schröter 2005.
12. ^ Foreword in Ten Years 1970, not paged.
13. ↑ Ten Years 1970, p. 14.
14. ↑ Ten Years 1970, p. 72.
15. ↑ See Schröter 1996, p. 1168.
16. ↑ Schröter 1996, p. 1168.
17. ↑ Bernfeld 1952, p. 445. The satisfaction at the finally achieved recognition by the established authorities is also clear from Eitingon's "Address at the inauguration of the new institute rooms" of September 30, 1928, see Ten Years 1970, pp. 71-74.
18. ↑ Freud 1926, p. 336.
19. ↑ Freud, The Question of Lay Analysis (afterword from 1927), p. 348.
20. ↑ Bernfeld 1952, p. 483, emphasizes the distortion of the transference situation in the training analysis by the real power of the training analyst and criticizes the training at the institutes as "completely teacher-centered".
21. ↑ Reprinted in Lohmann 1984, pp. 109–112.
22. ^ Letter from Müller-Braunschweig to Schultz-Hencke of July 8, 1945; quoted in Lockot 1994, p. 101.
23. ↑ Lockot 1994, p. 100.
24. ↑ See Maetze 1971, pp. 283f.
25. ↑ On the history of the German Psychoanalytical Society ( Memento of the original from November 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . On the homepage of the German Psychoanalytical Society, dpg-psa.de, last accessed on November 3, 2008.