Georges Devereux

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Georges Devereux (ca.1932)

Georges Devereux (born György Dobó September 13, 1908 in Lugos , Austria-Hungary ; died May 28, 1985 in Paris ) was an ethnologist and psychoanalyst . Besides Fritz Morgenthaler , Devereux was one of the pioneers of ethnopsychoanalysis and the author of over 400 scientific and literary-scientific texts.

biography

Georges Devereux came - like Géza Róheim - a family of bourgeois Hungarian Jews . His father György Dobó was a lawyer and chairman of the Neological Jewish Community, his mother Margarethe Deutsch came from Budapest. Devereux had a rather difficult relationship with her. Devereux's childhood and youth was shaped by the experience of the “insincerity of adults”, their “lack of respect for the child's world”. Even in his youth, Devereux spoke four languages ​​(Hungarian, Romanian, German, French).

"The annexation to Romania after the First World War brought about profound changes, as the Romanians wanted to impose their own cultural pattern on the local population with the claim to sole validity."

Devereux had to give up his desire to become a pianist after a failed operation on his right wrist. After his younger brother's suicide , Devereux went to Paris in 1926 and studied physics and chemistry with Marie Curie and Jean Perin for a year. Devereux looked for the "objective truth" in physics and the "subjective truth" in music. In his later work, Devereux repeatedly refers to scientific terms. In 1927 Devereux returned to Lugos seriously ill. From there he went to Leipzig in 1928 to do an apprenticeship as a publisher. After completing this training, Devereux moved back to Paris and initially studied the Malay language at the École des langues orientales , only out of embarrassment . Devereux began to get enthusiastic about ethnology and was able to study with Marcel Mauss , Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and Paul Rivet. He finished his ethnology studies in 1932 with a license . In Paris he made friends with Klaus Mann , who portrayed him as Sylvester Marschalk in his novel Treffpunkt im Infinite . Devereux wrote the novel Le faune dans l'enfer bourgeois at the time . Because a publication failed, Devereux destroyed most of the manuscript and only kept the lyrical passages.

György Dobó was baptized in 1933 and from then on bore the name George (s) Devereux.

Thanks to a Rockefeller Fellowship Devereux 1932 went to the preparation of field research in the Mohave - Indians in the US, where he spent three years. The beginnings were difficult: "With the young American anthropologists with whom he worked during his preparatory stay, he only encountered suspicion and contempt when, when asked about his teachers, he mentioned the names Mauss, Rivet and Lévy-Bruhl."

Thanks to the advocacy of Alfred Kroeber, Devereux was finally able to complete a research stay in Arizona with the Mohave and achieve significant results. He considered this time to be the happiest of his life. The Mohave pay great attention to their dreams, they have "converted me to Freud " (Devereux 1982, p. 20). After researching the Mohave, Devereux traveled via Samoa , New Zealand , Australia and New Guinea to Indochina , where he observed the Sedang Moi for 18 months. Most of this field research has remained unpublished. At the beginning of 1934 - when the third republic in France was shaken by the Alexandre Stavisky affair - Devereux returned to the USA and studied anthropology at the University of Berkeley . He did his doctorate with AL Kroeber.

From 1943 to 1944, Georges Devereux served in the American Army.

Devereux was analyzed by Marc Schlumberger (1900–1977) and Robert Jokl (1890–1975) . He completed his own analytical training in 1952 at the Menninger Clinic (Topeka, Kansas). From 1953 to 1955 he worked in a private psychiatric clinic for children and adolescents. Since 1956 he lived in New York. Devereux was a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Société Psychanalytique de Paris .

In 1963, thanks to Claude Lévi-Strauss , he was appointed to the École pratique des hautes études in Paris, where he taught until 1981. His main methodological work "From anxiety to method in the behavioral sciences" was published in 1967 in English. During the last years of his life, Devereux worked as a Graecist and published a book about the dreams in Greek tragedy .

methodology

In Anxiety and Method in the Behavioral Sciences Devereux provides a critique of behavioral methodology and seeks to initiate a reorientation of it. His thesis is:

“In short, behavioral data arouses fears that are warded off by a counter-transference- inspired pseudo-methodology. This maneuver is responsible for almost all shortcomings in behavioral science. "

Using hundreds of case studies, mainly from ethnology and psychiatry , he argues and demonstrates that behavioral data are regularly frightening. If this is not consciously compensated for , it happens unconsciously and countertransference reactions occur. In a methodology based on strict objectivity , not only is this not noticed, but the method itself becomes a means of coping with fear. Devereux, on the other hand, emphasizes that countertransference, once examined, provides the most characteristic data. The model for this is psychoanalysis.

In addition to his own experiences, Devereux has studied Claude Lévi-Strauss ' Tristes tropiques , with Georges Balandier's Afrique ambiguë and Condominas ' L'Exotique au quotidien . "These three are the only major attempts I know of to evaluate the impact of his data and his scientific work on the scientist himself."

influence

In France, Devereux's work is continued in particular by Tobie Nathan and Marie Rose Moro. The focus was on clinical work with migrants (ethnopsychiatry). The method of the second generation of the Zurich School of Ethnopsychoanalysis ( Mario Erdheim , Maya Nadig , Florence Weiss and others) is also significantly influenced by Devereux.

swell

  1. ↑ Michael Ghil ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 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. (PDF, Hungarian; 62 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mtapi.hu
  2. ↑ Bokelmann 1987, p. 10
  3. ↑ Bokelmann 1987, p. 11
  4. ↑ Bokelmann 1987, p. 16
  5. ↑ Georges Devereux, Anxiety and Method in Behavioral Sciences , Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna: Ullstein 1976, p. 18
  6. ^ Georges Devereux, Anxiety and Method in Behavioral Sciences , Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna: Ullstein 1976, pp. 20/21

Works (selection)

  • Reality and Dream. New York, 1951.
  • A Study of Abortion in Primitive Societies. Julian Press, New York, 1955.
  • From Anxiety to Method in the Behavioral Sciences. Mouton, 1967.

ISBN 3-446-11778-4 u. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1984. ISBN 3-518-28061-9 .

    • French edition: De l'angoisse à la méthode dans les sciences du comportement. Flammarion, Paris, 1980.
  • Essais d'ethnopsychiatrie générale. Gallimard, Paris, 1970.
    • Normal and abnormal. Essays on general ethnopsychiatry . (Introduction by Erich Wulff .) Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1974.
  • Dreams in Greek tragedy. An ethnopsychoanalytical investigation , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1982. ISBN 3-518-57614-3
  • Ethnopsychoanalysis complémentariste. Flammarion, Paris, 1972. New edition 1985.
    • German edition: Ethnopsychoanalysis. The complementary method in human science. Translated from the French by Ulrike Bokelmann. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1978.
  • Baubo. The mythical vulva . Translated from the French by Eva Moldenhauer . Syndicate , Frankfurt am Main, 1985 ISBN 3-434-46063-2
  • Woman and myth. Fink, Munich, 1986 ISBN 3-7705-2339-3
  • Cleomene le roi fou. Etudes d'histoire ethnopsychanalytique. , Aubier Montaigne, Paris, 1998 ISBN 2-7007-2114-4

Secondary literature

  • Georges Devereux: There is culturally neutral psychotherapy. Conversation with Georges Devereux . In: Hans Jürgen Heinrichs (ed.): Understanding the foreign. Conversations about everyday life, normality and abnormality . Qumran, Frankfurt, Paris 1982, pp. 15-32.
  • Marie-Christine Beck: La jeunesse de Georges Devereux. Un chemin peu habituel vers la psychanalysis . In: Revue Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychanalyse , 1991, 4, pp. 581-603.
  • Ulrike Bokelmann: Georges Devereux . In: Hans Peter Duerr: The wild soul. On the ethno-psychoanalysis by Georges Devereux . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1987, pp. 9-31.
  • Klaus-Dieter Brauner: Culture and Symptom. About the theoretical and methodological foundations of George Devereux 'conception of an ethnopsychoanalysis and ethnopsychiatry . Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York 1986.
  • Elisabeth Burgos, Georges Devereux, Mohave: Le Coq Héron , No. 109, 1988, pp. 71-75.
  • Hans Peter Duerr (Ed.): The wild soul. On the ethno-psychoanalysis by Georges Devereux . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1987.
  • Ulrike Kluge: Georges Devereux: A pioneer of transcultural psychiatry on a journey between worlds. Editorial. In: Curare , 2009, 3 + 4, pp. 163–172.
  • Françoise Michel-Jones: Georges Devereux et l'ethnologie française. Rencontre et malentendu . In: Nouvelle revue d'Ethnopsychiatrie , 1986, No. 6, pp. 81-94.
  • Johannes Reichmayr: Introduction to Ethnopsychoanalysis. History, theories and methods . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-596-10650-8 - complete. revised New edition: Psychosozial-Verlag 2003, ISBN 3-89806-166-3 .
  • Ekkehard Schröder, Dieter H. Friessem (ed.): Georges Devereux on his 75th birthday. A commemorative publication . Curare special volume 2/1984, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1984.
  • Simone Valantin-Charasson, Ariane Deluz: Contrefiliations et inspirations paradoxales. Georges Devereux (1908-1985) . In: Revue Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychanalyse . 1991, 4, pp. 605-617.

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Devereux, Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dobó, György (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ethnologist and psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Lugoj , Banat
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1985
Place of death Paris