Heinz Hartmann (doctor)

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Wagner-Jauregg's
medical team in Vienna in 1927.
Heinz Hartmann in the first row, the second from the right

Heinz Hartmann (born November 4, 1894 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † May 17, 1970 in Stony Point , New York) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst . He is considered to be one of the founders and most important representatives of ego psychology .

childhood and education

Hartmann came from a family that made a number of writers and academics. His father Ludo Moritz Hartmann was a history professor, his mother Margarete, b. Chrobak, pianist and sculptor. After high school he studied medicine at the University of Vienna and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD. After that he worked first as an assistant, later as a senior physician at the state hospital for the mentally ill in Vienna with Julius Wagner-Jauregg .

Relation to Sigmund Freud

He was interested in Freud's theories. The death of Karl Abraham prevented Hartmann from pursuing the training analysis that he had planned on him. Instead, he undertook his first analysis with Sándor Radó . From 1920 he was a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association . In 1927 he published the foundations of psychoanalysis and then several studies on psychoses, neuroses, twins, etc. He also took part in the publication of a manual for medical psychology and was editor of the international journal for psychoanalysis from 1932 to 1941 . When Hartmann was suggested for a position at Johns Hopkins University , Sigmund Freud offered him a free analysis to keep him in Vienna. He chose to analyze with Freud and became known as the preeminent analyst of his generation.

The psychology of the ego

Before the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society he presented a study on the psychology of the ego in 1937 , a topic that he would later delve into when he published his work ego-psychology and adjustment problem. This work established the development of the theoretical direction that came to be known as ego psychology .

In the course of expanding and differentiating psychoanalysis and ego psychology, Heinz Hartmann introduced the self as an authority in the theories of psychoanalysis. For Hartmann, this instance is a further overarching psychological system in addition to the id and the superego. In comparison to the objects of the outside world, it can also be charged with libidinal energy. This makes it possible to differentiate between the occupation of objects in the outside world and the occupation of one's own person. This theoretical step had a great influence on the object relationship theory and self psychology of Heinz Kohut .

1938: Escape and a new beginning in the USA

After the " Anschluss of Austria ", Hartmann had to leave Austria with his family in 1938 to escape the Nazis. On the way via Paris and Switzerland he reached New York in 1941, where he quickly became one of the leading thinkers of the New York Psychoanalytic Society . He was joined by Ernst Kris and Rudolph Loewenstein , with whom he wrote many articles.

In 1945, together with Kris and Anna Freud, he founded an annual publication entitled The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child . Hartmann was President of the International Psychological Association (IPA) from 1941 to 1957 , and after several years of presidency, he was awarded the honorary title of President for Life.

Fonts (selection)

  • Ego psychology and the problem of adjustment . 3. unchang. Ed., Klett, Stuttgart 1975.
  • Essays on Ego Psychology. Selected Problems in Psychoanalytic Theory , 1965, ISBN 0-8236-1740-8 , German ego psychology. Studies on psychoanalytic theory , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart ²1997, ISBN 978-3-608-91847-2

literature

  • Martin S. Bergmann (Ed.): The Hartmann Era . Other Press, New York 2000.
  • Melvin Bornstein: A Reappraisal of Heinz Hartmann's Contributions (Psychoanalytic Inquiry), Analytic Press, 1995.
  • Sibylle Drews; Karen Brecht: Psychoanalytic ego psychology. Basics and development . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981 (Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 381).
  • Jeanne Lampl-de Groot: Heinz Hartmann's contributions to psychoanalysis . In: Psyche , 18th year 1964, pp. 321–329.
  • Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 1: A-I. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 506.
  • Uwe Henrik Peters : Psychiatry in exile: the emigration of dynamic psychiatry from Germany 1933–1939 , Kupka, Düsseldorf 1992, ISBN 3-926567-04-X , p. 75

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Ludwig J. Pongratz : Main currents of depth psychology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 467). Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-46701-1 .
personal data
SURNAME Hartmann, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 17th May 1970
Place of death Stony Point , New York