Igor A. Caruso

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Igor Alexander Graf Caruso (born January 23, 1914 in Tiraspol , southern Russia (today Moldova / Transnistria ), † June 28, 1981 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian psychologist and psychoanalyst of Russian origin. In 1947 he founded the Vienna Working Group for Psychoanalysis .

life and work

Adolescence

Igor Caruso came from a tsarist noble family who had to leave Russia after the October Revolution. He grew up at the age of 12 with Catholic priests in Belgium; thanks to a scholarship for talented students at the University of Leuven (Louvain), he was able to study and in 1937 also obtained his doctorate there. The topic of his dissertation was: La notion de la responsabilité et de justice immanente chez l'enfant . He then worked in an educational counseling center in Belgium. He met Irina Grauen, a Russified Estonian who also completed her studies in Belgium. In 1939 he went to Estonia to marry Irina in her homeland. In the summer of 1940, Estonia was annexed to the USSR as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact . Caruso and his wife could not return to Belgium due to the developments in the war. They joined a Baltic German transport and were interned in the Neresheim resettlement camp for several months . Irina fell seriously ill in the camp, a daughter was born, but died after a few weeks.

Period of National Socialism and social advancement in the post-war period

In 1942, with the help of a sister of Irina and her Austrian husband, a member of the SS, they were able to move to Vienna. Through the intercession of his brother-in-law, Caruso was able to take up a job as an educator and expert in the notorious Spiegelgrund . When he applied to Innsbruck, he was not allowed to work in a clinical setting due to a lack of qualifications - he was actually a pedagogue and not a psychologist. In 1942 he got a better paid position in the Wiener Städtische mental hospital Döbling . It was there that lifelong friendships arose with Nazi psychiatrists who had committed themselves to a "psychoanalysis purified from the corrosive Jewish spirit". His close relationship with his superior Alfred Prince von Auersperg , who fled to Brazil in 1946, meant that Caruso was not accepted into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association . Instead, he founded the Vienna Working Group for Depth Psychology in 1947, which mainly brought together former NSDAP, SS and SA members, some of whom came from the National Socialist Reich Institute for Psychotherapy , as well as Catholic psychiatrists and psychologists.

Through his second marriage to his wife Maria, who came from the Viennese industrial family Mayer-Gunthof , Caruso was able to rise in society and work out a position as a star analyst of the clergy and society. In 1952 Caruso propagated a holistic, Christian psychology based on authors such as Heidegger , Viktor von Weizsäcker and CG Jung , which was guided by a “Christ archetype”. The subsequent turn to left intellectualist currents - now Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse are his preferred reference persons - brought him the approval of a part of the 68 student body who revered him as a guru.

Latin America

In 1956, after the first Brazilians had finished their training in Vienna, he made his first lecture tour to Brazil, where he said he was appointed professor in Rio Grande do Sul. On the occasion of this trip, the already existing working group in Brazil was officially founded. In 1957 the book Bios, Psyche, Person was published, which was created in collaboration with some of his students. In the years 1958 to 1968, trainee candidates came from different countries: Colombia, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Brazil, Mexico and Israel. In 1964 Caruso went to Bogotá as a visiting professor for six months; it was there that the Colombian Working Group for Depth Psychology was founded. In 1966 and 1967 Caruso lectured at the Medical Faculty of the University of Graz. In 1968 he went to Belo Horizonte (Brazil) for a year; Here he devoted himself to training in the Brazilian working group for depth psychology and gave lectures at the university.

University of Salzburg

Caruso had been a lecturer at the University of Salzburg since 1967, received a position as a grammar school teacher in the university service from 1969 and became a professor from Minister Hertha Firnberg from 1972 without habilitation and without carrying out an appointment procedure, but to ward off a call to the Free University of Berlin Appointed for Clinical Psychology and Social Psychology. Here he founded the Salzburg Research and Working Group for Depth Psychology and Psychosomatics, which was later named the Salzburg Working Group for Depth Psychology . In 1976, together with colleagues in Salzburg, he founded the Austrian Study Society for Child Psychoanalysis . In 1979 he retired for health reasons. In his academic teaching he represented a Catholic depth psychology with pronounced Marxist features, later tried to determine the role of psychoanalysis in today's society and worked out particularly social-psychological aspects of psychoanalysis. A certain importance can be ascribed to Caruso in his institution-building role as the founder of several psychoanalytic working groups, but this can also be interpreted as a flight forward, as he was denied admission to the International Psychoanalytic Association .

An intensive university collaboration arose at the Salzburg Institute for Psychology with Wilhelm Josef Revers , Heimo Gastager and Gerhart Harrer .

The Werkblatt , founded in 1984, sees itself in its tradition.

criticism

Caruso was from February 1942 to October 1942 under the direction of Ernst Illing and the ward doctor Heinrich Gross educator and psychological expert in the “ children's department ”, pavilions 15 and 17 (departments “weeding measures” and “genetic and racial care”) of the Viennese "Welfare Institution" Spiegelgrund . At least 14 children were also murdered on the basis of the psychological reports prepared by him in the course of the child euthanasia program.

The self-felt guilt because of his past was first addressed by Caruso in 1974 in the St. Pöltner church newspaper. He also commented on this in a radio interview from 1979, albeit disguised and euphemistic behind general accusations (“we are all potential murderers”). He has not confessed to his involvement in the killing of children, which could not have remained hidden from him. He is classified as the "vicarious agent" of a deeply sadistic and inhuman system.

Even as a psychoanalyst, Caruso is controversial, as there is no evidence of his psychoanalytic training, which is said to have taken place with August Aichhorn and Baron von Gebsattel , and the information given on this is incorrect. In the long term, his writings did not have any special effects; it is considered to be more or less forgotten, both in psychoanalysis and especially in academic psychology.

Selected Works

  • Psychoanalysis and Synthesis of Existence. Relationships between psychological analysis and existential values . Herder Verlag, Freiburg 1952.
  • Bios, psyche, person. An introduction to general depth psychology . Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg 1957.
  • Social Aspects of Psychoanalysis . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1962.
  • The separation of the lovers. A phenomenology of death . Verlag Hans Huber, Bern / Stuttgart 1968. New edition: Verlag Turia + Kant, Vienna / Berlin 2016.
  • Narcissism and Socialization. Developmental psychological foundations of social behavior . Bonz Verlag, Stuttgart 1976.

literature

  • Ewald H. Englert (Ed.): The impoverishment of the psyche. Igor A. Caruso on his 65th birthday . With a foreword by Axel Kerfting. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-593-32375-3 .
  • Heimo Gastager (ed.): Psychoanalysis as a challenge. Festschrift for Igor A. Caruso. Association of the Austrian Scientific Society, Vienna 1980.
  • Austrian Study Society for Child Psychoanalysis (Ed.): In Memoriam Igor A. Caruso. (Symposium on June 25/26, 1982 in Fieberbrunn). Publication of the lectures: Salzburg 1988.
  • Peter Stöger: Life and Work of Igor A. Carusos: Insights and Outlooks. In: Education and Teaching, Austrian Pedagogical Journal (Vienna), CXXXIII, year 1983, issue 2 (February), pp. 72–81.
  • Peter Stöger: Personalization at Igor Caruso. With a foreword by Erwin Ringel. Herder, Freiburg 1987 (also habilitation thesis, University of Innsbruck 1984).
  • Peter Stöger: Caruso, Igor Alexander. In: Gerhard Stumm (Ed.): Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy. Springer, Vienna 2005, pp. 82–83.
  • Eveline List: “Why not in Kizhnev?” - On an autobiographical sound document by Igor Caruso. In: Journal for Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice . Vol. 33 (2008), issue 1/2, pp. 117-141.
  • Gerhard Benetka, Clarissa Rudolph: "Of course a lot happened back then ...". Igor A. Caruso at Spiegelgrund. In: Werkblatt, Salzburg 2008
  • Bettina Reiter: They were just reports . In: Die Presse , print edition of September 6, 2008 ( online edition : September 5, 2008, accessed on August 23, 2010).

Movie

  • Caruso. Remember - repeat - work through. A documentary by Michael Kolnberger. Austria 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ State Archives Basel-Stadt Signature: PD-REG 3a 28282; The entry with the date of birth is personally signed in the dossier
  2. ↑ Self-presentation of the WAP , accessed on January 24, 2010
  3. ↑ Eveline List: Why not in Kishiniev? To an autobiographical audio document by Igor Caruso. In: Journal for Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice. 23rd year (2008), issue 1, Stroemfeld Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
  4. ↑ Expert opinion - Igor Caruso in National Socialism . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 5, 2008, page N3 (humanities).
  5. ↑ Bettina Reiter (2008). They were just reports. The press of September 6, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Caruso, Igor A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caruso, Igor Alexander Graf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian psychologist and psychoanalyst of Russian origin
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Tiraspol
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1981
Place of death Salzburg