Walter Morgenthaler

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Walter Morgenthaler (born April 15, 1882 in Ursenbach , Canton Bern ; † April 1, 1965 in Muri bei Bern ; resident in Ursenbach) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist .

family

Walter Morgenthaler comes from the Morgenthaler family , Hinteres Mösli line, in the canton of Bern. His father Christian Niklaus Morgenthaler (1853–1928) was a geometer, engineer, government councilor and building director, was a member of the Council of States and was director of the Emmental Railway (1905–1926). His mother Anna Barbara was the daughter of Samuel Wittwer (1824–1886), a shopkeeper in Ursenbach.

education and profession

Morgenthaler grew up in Oberaargau and went to primary school in Kleindietwil . In 1897 the family moved to Bern, where Morgenthaler attended the Progymnasium and Gymnasium before he began studying medicine there in 1902 . He spent the winter of 1905/06 in Vienna to take part in Sigmund Freud 's psychotherapy colleges . He then continued his studies in Bern (among others with Hermann Sahli and Theodor Kocher ), although a permanent hearing impairment prevented him. Morgenthaler spent the last year of his studies in Zurich, where the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler and the brain anatomist Constantin von Monakow were among his teachers and where he passed the medical state examination in 1908.

1908–1910 Morgenthaler worked as an assistant doctor in the Waldau insane asylum and received his doctorate there with a thesis on sphygmomanometric blood pressure measurements in the mentally ill. He then visited the psychiatric clinics in Munich and Berlin, where he met the psychiatrists Emil Kraepelin and Hermann Oppenheim . From 1910 he worked again as an assistant doctor in the Friedmatt sanatorium in Basel, from 1912 in the Münsingen sanatorium near Bern and in 1913 as a senior physician in the Waldau institution. In 1915 he published a historical account of the “insane being” in Bern, after which he completed his habilitation as a private lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Bern (1917–1937). After he had taken over the management of the private mental hospital Münchenbuchsee (1920-1925) as chief physician , Morgenthaler opened a private practice for psychotherapy and marriage counseling, lived and worked in Muri (Bern) since 1940.

power

The publication of the medical history of the schizophrenic artist Adolf Wölfli gained worldwide attention in 1921 . In it Morgenthaler drew attention to the value of artistic activity as a remedy in the care of psychiatric patients. For the first time ever, he did not treat a patient as an anonymous psychiatric "case", but called him by name and even honored him as an artist.

In addition, Morgenthaler campaigned for the spread of Hermann Rorschach's psychodiagnostic method , the Rorschach test (interpretation of blotch images). Further studies dealt with the "incurability dogma" of schizophrenia and the mood of suicides before their act.

Morgenthaler's main merit was his lifelong endeavor to improve nursing training in psychiatry. In more than 200 publications, he promoted the training and further education of nursing staff, founded a specialist magazine, wrote a textbook and advocated the introduction of a binding curriculum and better pay for nursing staff. While the first part of the curriculum was devoted to general nursing topics, Morgenthaler dealt specifically with insane care in the second part . In 1942 Morgenthaler founded the Swiss Society for Psychology and from 1942 published the Swiss Journal for Psychology and its Applications. Attempts by German professional associations to integrate him into the Nazi medical profession, Morgenthaler successfully resisted.

Works

  • Blood pressure measurements on the mentally ill . In: General journal for psychiatry and psycho-forensic medicine . Volume 67, Berlin 1909 (diss.)
  • Bernese madness . Bern 1915
  • A mentally ill artist (Adolf Wölfli) . Bern 1921, reprint: Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-85446-115-1
  • The dogma of the incurability of schizophrenia . In: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry . Volume 100, 1926, pp. 668-677
  • The care of mental and mental illnesses . Berlin 1930.
  • Rorschach method - Rorschach movement . In: Swiss journal for psychology and its applications . Volume 2, 1943 (1/2)
  • Latest records of suicides . Bern 1945.
  • Gender, love, marriage . Zurich 1953.
  • The man Karl Marx . Bern 1962.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubert Kolling in Hubert Kolling (ed.): Biographical lexicon for nursing history, "Who was who in nursing history", Volume 7, hpsmedia Nidda, pp. 188–193.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Morgenthaler, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Ursenbach BE
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1965
Place of death Muri near Bern