Georg A. Roemer

Georg August Roemer (born July 19, 1892 in Stuttgart , † May 5, 1972 in Tutzing ) was a German neurologist , psychiatrist and psychoanalyst . He modified 1919–1922 in close correspondence with Hermann Rorschach and then only his Rorschach test , an "ink blot test", which can be used as an aid for the differential diagnostic examination of anamnesis of psychopathological symptoms , under the new name "symbol test".

Life

Roemer came from an old Swabian family and attended the Karls-Gymnasium Stuttgart until he graduated in 1910. He studied medicine in Tübingen, Munich, Erlangen, Leipzig, Marburg and again Tübingen until he graduated in 1916. He was a fellow student a. a. by Ernst Kretschmer . He obtained his license to practice medicine on September 24, 1917. Georg A. Roemer received his doctorate in 1919 under Paul Clemens von Baumgarten with a "Contribution to determining the type and cause of death".

After completing his studies, Roemer u. a. practical experience at the University Hospital Göttingen , went to Switzerland towards the end of 1918 and worked for three months as a trainee doctor at the district hospital in Herisau. According to his own statement, he met Hermann Rorschach in the local medical association in December 1918. From March to May 1919 he worked as a trainee doctor at the Appenzell sanatorium, a psychiatric clinic at which Rorschach was senior physician. During this time he discussed the inkblot test procedure with him in detail and, at the suggestion of Rorschach, carried out his own experiments. Roemer then worked as a doctor for a children's aid organization in the Bernese Alps, where he tested these and new inkblot pictures with the children. In September 1920 he returned to Germany and worked as a research assistant at the University Polyclinic in Göttingen, where he continued his tests on adults and specifically with regard to war neuroses. From 1921 to 1922 Roemer also worked for the German student body, where he had the opportunity to check the test for its suitability for academic career counseling using entire series of findings on students and lecturers.

In 1923 Roemer first went to the Medical Polyclinic in Königsberg. In 1924 he became the head of the Medical and Psychological Institute in Stuttgart (founded by Robert Bosch , from 1926 supported by the Society for Personality Research ). He headed this institute until it was closed (as the "Psychomedical Institute") in 1941. After the war, Roemer set up his own practice in Tutzing, where in 1953 he re-founded and headed the Psychomedical Institute. Georg A. Roemer was married to the sculptor Marianne Rousselle .

meaning

Georg A. Roemer initially saw himself as a colleague of Hermann Rorschach and presented the Rorschach test for the first time in Germany with great success. His keen interest in improving the procedure, his criticism of the inadequacy of several of the old test images and the search for objectivability led him to repeatedly discuss changes with Rorschach. Roemer recorded Rorschach's interpretations of Roemer's series of pictures in shorthand, so that relevant knowledge about Rorschach himself is possible. During a 14-day visit in October 1921, the two of them agreed on a new evaluation scheme which, in addition to the classic functional conception (Rorschach), should also leave space for a symbolic one (Roemer). Rorschach presented this new scheme on February 18, 1922 in a lecture to the Swiss Society for Psychoanalysis in Zurich. After Rorschach's unexpected death on April 2, 1922, Roemer was deprived of the opportunity to contribute his own findings to the Rorschach test and was looking for a new name for his further developments. Since he was particularly interested in deep psychological knowledge possibilities, he called his version first the depth test , later the symbol test . For decades he was committed to the implementation of the blotch test procedures and published his own symbol test master series (with information on Rorschach's "signing technique" in his test series and the findings of the symbol test master series by Roemer). In his writings, Roemer was happy to quote statements from experts about his method: "The tests developed by GARoemer enable the determination of complex psychological processes like no other method." (CGYoung). In addition to the Rorschach test, which had become the "original" unmodified by Rorschach's early death, however, Roemer's symbol test could not prevail. Colloquially, the "Rorschach test" became a synonym for the blotch image tests in general. Roemer expanded the symbol test to include additional tests: introductory tests such as the kinaesthesia test and additional tests such as the criticism test. A scientific appreciation of the work of Georg A. Roemer is still pending.

art

Roemer, who for several decades repeatedly experimented with new techniques for the production of blotch images, left behind a myriad of sheets that are also interesting from an aesthetic and artistic point of view. Even during his lifetime, these mostly colored works quickly found their way into collectors' circles via the art market as unique specimens monogrammed and dated by him - occasionally under the term "Rorschach pictures", which is certainly not entirely happy from Roemer's point of view.

estate

The extensive estate of Georg A. Roemer is located in the Hermann Rorschach Archive at the Institute for Medical History at the University of Bern and has been cataloged since April 2013. He holds u. a. extensive correspondence with Hermann and Olga Rorschach, but also numerous other correspondence, u. a. with Carl Gustav Jung , Alexander Mitscherlich , Felix Schottlaender , Gustav Hans Graber , Ernst Speer , Hans Prinzhorn , Herbert von Karajan and many others and z. B. a test protocol of the symbol test by Ludwig Klages . The estate is also an important source on the history of psychotherapy in Germany, especially during the Nazi regime.

Fonts

A list published by the Psychomedical Institute Tutzing around 1968 names 55 mostly smaller publications / essays by Georg A. Roemer.

• The scientific development of the inner world of a personality. Emil Birkhäuser & Cie., Basel 1931.
• From the Rorschach test to the symbol test. Review of 20 years of development of psychomedical test methods. In: Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie , Vol. X, 1938, H. 6.
• Rorschach and Roemer's symbol test series. In: Heilpädagogische Werkblätter , Lucerne, 34th year 1965, No. 4.

literature

• Rita Signer: Inventory Fund Georg August Hermann Roemer. Bern 2013. (see web links)
• Christian Müller , Rita Signer (ed.): Correspondence. Hermann Rorschach , Hans Huber , Bern 2004, ISBN 978-3-456-84044-4 .

Web links

• Rita Singer: Georg A. Roemer's estate inventory in the Rorschach Archive (University of Bern)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rorschach and Roemer's symbol test series. In: Heilpädagogische Werkblätter , Lucerne, 34th year 1965, No. 4.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Rita Signer: Inventory Fund Georg August Hermann Roemer. Bern 2013.