Freud’s new discovery of psychoanalysis, this should in no way diminish the enthusiasm and excitement of more recent contributors and of the intellectual excitement that marks psychoanalysis today.
The biographies of the noted analysts included on this web page are a ringing endorsement of the vitality and creativity that marks the history of psychoanalysis. The theories and ideas they advanced, as well as their personalities, range over a wide spectrum. While the early contributors were an extraordinary cast of characters, whose energy and commitment were inspired byWhat follows are biographies of psychoanalytic pioneers and contemporary psychoanalysts. Members of the Public Information Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association selected the list. It is a work in progress and biographies of other distinguished analysts who contributed to the extraordinary history of psychoanalysis will be added over time.
- Karl Abraham
- Alfred Adler
- August Aichhorn
- Franz Alexander
- Lou Andreas-Salomé
- Michael Balint
- Ludwig Binswanger
- W. R. Bion
- Marie Bonaparte
- John Bowlby
- Abraham Arden Brill
- Helen Deutsch
- Kurt Eissler
- Erik Erikson
- W. Ronald D. Fairbairn
- Otto Fenichel
- Sandor Ferenczi
- Anna Freud
- Sigmund Freud
- Erich Fromm
- Edward Glover
- Harry Guntrip
- Heinz Hartmann
- Karen Horney
- Ernest Jones
- Carl Gustav Jung
- Melanie Klein
- Heinz Kohut
- Ernst Kris
- Jacques Lacan
- Stephen A. Mitchell
- Otto Rank
- David Rapaport
- Wilhelm Reich
- Theodor Reik
- Geza Roheim
- Hans Sachs
- Joseph J. Sandler
- Harry Stack Sullivan
- Donald W. Winnicott
The First German Psychoanalyst - Karl Abraham 1877–1925
James Glover, and Helene Deutsch.
Karl Abraham, the brilliant founder of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute which is a model for institutes to follow, fluent in many languages, beloved of his colleagues, and a man of personal charm, died far too young. Abraham was a member of Freud’s Secret Committee and a favorite of Freud. He was the analyst of Melanie Klein, Karen Horney, Sandor Rado, Theodor Reik, Edward andAbraham completed his medical training in 1901, then worked in Bleuler’s clinic in Zurich and, later, with Carl Jung. He first met Freud in 1907 and their correspondence, first published in 1965 asA Psycho-Analytic Dialogue: The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham 1907–1926, will be published soon in a more complete and less sanitized edition.
Abraham’s many papers, which are a delight to read, are collected in two volumes,Selected Papers of Karl Abraham(1949), andClinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis(1955). They cover a wide range that includes work on pregenital stages of development, depression, mania, auto erotism, repressed hate, the female castration complex, anal character, as well as others on applied psychoanalysis that include papers on myth and the Day of Atonement. His work influenced Melanie Klein on infantile relationships as well as Rene Spitz’s research on hospitalism. Writing to Abraham’s widow, Freud said “I have no substitute for him....”
Individual Psychology and the Inferiority Complex - Alfred Adler 1870–1937
Alfred Adler, a member of the original Wednesday evening group that became the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, broke with Freud over his work on inferiority complex and the predominance of external factors in emotional disturbance. Adler relegated the role of instinctual strivings to feelings of inferiority and the crucial reaction to these feelings as a “masculine protest.”
Adler’s successful struggle as a child against rickets led him to believe that failure to adapt to organic weakness may lead to later disturbance. He viewed sexuality as symbolic and rejected the notion of penis envy.
Born in Vienna, Adler graduated from the University of Vienna Medical School in 1895, was a coeditor of theZentralblatt fur Psychoanalyseand president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. In 1911, Adler founded the Society for Free Psychoanalysis. His individual psychology emphasizes the blending of social interest with striving for personal superiority. Adler is a forerunner of contemporary psychoanalytic theory (although generally not acknowledged) and his work remains unappreciated.
There is a biography by Phyllis Bottome,Alfred Adler: A Portrait from Life(1957), another by Edward Hoffman,The Drive for Self: Alfred Adler and the Founding of Individual Psychology(1994), and a study by Heinz and Rowena Ansbacher,The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler(1964). There are Alfred Adler Institutes and a journal The Journal of Individual Psychology. Adler’s work includesA Study of Organ Inferiority(1917),The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology(1927),Problems of Neurosis: Case Histories(1929),What Life Should Be to You(1931).
Wayward Youth - August Aichhorn 1878-1949
August Aichhorn opened an entirely new field of study for psychoanalysis, the application of psychoanalytic principles to the study of delinquency. His magnum opusVerwahrloste Jungend(1925) (Wayward Youth(1925)) is still considered an important resource. It introduces students and workers in delinquency to the basic principles of psychoanalysis as well as psychoanalysts to the problems of working with delinquents. Aichhorn advanced the idea of the distinction between manifest and latent delinquency and believed that an arrest in development predisposes to antisocial behavior, which arises from disturbances in early child-parent relationships.
After a career as a school-teacher in Vienna, and later at reformatory schools in Austria, he developed an intuitive capacity to deal with delinquents. His success led him to be encouraged by Anna Freud to enter psychoanalytic training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1922 at age 44. He later organized a child guidance service for the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
With the Anschluss in 1938, Aichhorn remained in Austria as a non-Jew— “He was an old hand at dealing with gangsters and was on familiar ground with the Nazis.” He quietly analyzed a number of young psychiatrists in readiness for a future for psychoanalysis after the war. With the end of the war, he took steps to reopen the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was renamed the August Aichhorn Gesellschaft. Kurt Eissler edited a volume in his honor,Searchlights on Delinquency(1949).
Berlin’s First Student - Franz Alexander 1891-1964
Franz Alexander, a brilliant creative teacher and organizer, director for 25 years of the Chicago Institute, the first Professor of Psychoanalysis at the University of Chicago, was an enemy of dogmatism and a defender of analytic innovation. His concept of a “corrective emotional experience,” although criticized, suggested that early experiences can be corrected by new experiences in the therapeutic situation. Alexander never suggested manipulation or role playing but was a forward thinking innovator. Martin Grotjahn wrote that Alexander may have disturbed the sleep of psychoanalysis, which is not easily forgiven.
Born in Budapest, the son of a distinguished philosophy professor, Alexander graduated in 1912. At the Berlin Institute, his talents were immediately recognized. He rejected an offer by Freud to become his assistant, instead he left for the Chicago Institute, which became modeled after Berlin. Freud later referred to him as my most brilliant student in the United States. After a year at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science, he spent the remainder of his life in Los Angeles where, as Professor of Psychoanalysis at the University of Southern California, he worked to integrate psychoanalysis and psychiatry.
Alexander co-founded the journal Psychosomatic Medicine in 1939. A prolific writer, his published works include:The History of Psychiatry(1966),Psychoanalysis of the Total Personality(1930),The Medical Value of Psychoanalysis(1936),Psychoanalytic Therapy: Principles and Applications(1946),Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy(1957), a semi-autobiographical studyThe Western Mind in Transition(1960), andThe Scope of Psychoanalysis 1921–1961: Selected Papers of Franz Alexander(1961).
An Extraordinary Woman - Lou Andreas-Salomé 1861-1937
Lou Andreas-Salomé is known as much for her contributions to psychoanalysis as her novels, her friendship with Anna and Sigmund Freud, and her personal involvement with Friedrich Nietzsche and the poet Ranier Maria Rilke. Brilliant, charming, and creative, her gifts allowed her to have contacts with some of the most noteworthy figures of her time. Her best known novels areRuth(1895),Das Haus(1919), andRodinka(1923), which was dedicated to Anna Freud, and a book about Nietzsche,Nietzsche in Seinen Werhen(1894). Her essays and other writings were widely read and her fame was widespread. Her affair with Viktor Tausk and his subsequent suicide are documented in Paul Roazen’sBrother Animal(1969). There are several biographies including Binion’sFrau Lou: Nietzsche’s Wayward Disciple(1968).
Lou Andreas-Salomé met Freud in 1912, which she described as a turning point in her life. She published papers inImagoon narcissism and anality, and practiced psychoanalysis in Göttingen until shortly before her death. She became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society along with Anna Freud in 1922 on the basis of a project that became Anna Freud’s famous paper on beating fantasies. Her correspondence with Anna Freud has yet to be published but will reveal that she played a prominent role in helping Anna Freud during critical periods in her life. Letters between Andreas-Salomé and Freud were published in 1977, and a diary of Freud’s lectures during her stay in Vienna,The Freud Journal of Lou Andreas-Salomé, was published in 1964. Hers was an extraordinary life for a woman at that time.
Ferenczi’s Student - Michael Balint 1896-1970
Michael Balint was a student and loyal supporter of Sándor Ferenczi and translator of Ferenczi’s Clinical Diary, who upon Ferenczi’s death in 1933, became director of the Budapest Psychoanalytic Clinic. Balint received his MD from Budapest University and a PhD in biochemistry in Berlin where he had fled to escape anti-Semitism in Hungary. In 1939, he moved to Manchester and then to London where he was a valuable member of both the British Psychoanalytical Society and the Tavistock Institute.
Balint is to be remembered for many achievements. He introduced the concept of the “basic fault” that illness is the result of early environmental factors which result in helplessness. He highlighted the importance of “primary love” and the importance of regression in treatment. Balint felt that a new type of patient had emerged, one who could not find his or her place in life and is afraid of pleasure and excitation. He felt that all analyses represent a “new beginning” in the life of a patient.
Michael Balint has been immortalized by his founding of “Balint Groups” in which physician-members discuss care of patients and the doctor-patient relationship. Inspired by a paper he wrote in 1955, “The doctor, his patient and the illness,” group leaders are generally psychoanalysts. There are Balint Societies and Groups worldwide as well as an International Balint Federation.
Among his books which generally collect his papers areProblems of Human Nature and Behavior(1957),Thrills and Regressions(1959),Primary Love and Psychoanalytic Technique(1965),The Basic Fault: Therapeutic Aspects of Regression(1968), andPsychotherapeutic Techniques in Medicine(1961).
Existential Analysis - Ludwig Binswanger 1881-1966
Ludwig Binswanger was introduced to Freud in 1907 and they remained close until Freud’s death despite significant differences in their ages and theoretical perspectives— a friendship that is a tribute to Binswanger’s generous and warm personality. Indeed, Martha Freud, after Freud’s death, confessed to him that “It is small comfort for me to know that in the fifty-three years of our married life not one angry word fell between us.” This friendship is recorded in Binswanger’sSigmund Freud: Reminiscences of a Friendship(1957). The Freud-Binswanger Correspondence will be published in 2002.
Binswanger, a Swiss who came from a distinguished family of psychiatrists and physicians was influenced not only by Jung but also by Husserl, Heidegger, and Buber. After receiving his MD from the University of Zurich, he became the medical director at the Bellevue Sanitarium in Kreuzlungen where he remained for 45 years.
With Medard Boss, he is the major figure in existential analysis and phenomenological psychiatry. His two famous cases are “The Case of Lola Voss” reprinted inBeing in the World: Selected Papers of Ludwig Binswanger(1963) and “The Case of Ellen West” inExistence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychologyedited by Rollo May, et al. (1958). Although not as popular as it was in the 50s and 60s, those who practice existential psychology stick close to the lived world of the patient with an emphasis on being, developing autonomy, and authenticity.
Binswanger’s other works have not been translated from the German but include such titles as (English translations)On the Flight of Ideas(1933),Basic Forms and Cognition of Human Existence(1953), andSchizophrenia(1957).
Memory and Desire - W. R. Bion 1897-1979
Bion’s is an extraordinary life, unique for a psychoanalyst. With the outbreak of World War I, he saw action as a youthful tank commander on the Western Front for which he was awarded a DSO. He later received a medical degree, and with the outbreak of World War II, was an army psychiatrist and is remembered for his introduction of group therapy.
Bion was analyzed by Melanie Klein who greatly influenced him and with whom he is linked. In 1968, Bion went to Los Angeles where he exerted a great influence on analysis, staying for 11 years.
It is hard to characterize Bion’s writing, as it is both heavily philosophical and enigmatic. He is known for a short paper in which he suggested that analysts listen to their patients without “memory or desire” experiencing each session as new and unique. “Bion’s style is a mixture of dazzling illuminations, provocative aphorisms and tiresome digression.”
Bion’s posthumously publishedWar Memoirs: 1917-1919(1997) tells of the horrors of World War I. Other autobiographical works areThe Long Weekend: 1897-1919(1982),All My Sins Remembered(1985), andA Memoir of the Future(1991).Experience in Groups(1961) is an excellent introduction to group therapy.Seven Servants(1997) collects four major works:Learning from Experience(1962),Elements of Psycho-Analysis(1963),Transformations(1965),Attention and Interpretation(1970).New Introduction to the Work of Bion(1993) is by León Grinberg, Darío Sor, and Elizabeth Tabak de Bianchedi. There is a biography by Gérard Bléandonu,Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works 1897-1979(1994). His posthumously publishedCogitations(1991) has received critical praise.
Savior of Psychoanalysis - Princess Marie Bonaparte 1882-1962
It was to Marie Bonaparte that Freud remarked: “The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is ‘What does a woman want?’” This comment did not deter Marie Bonaparte from a lifelong exploration of the feminine soul. InFemale Sexuality(1953) she advanced a biological theory of bisexuality to explain why a masculinity complex is more common in women than a femininity complex in men and why women must grieve for and accept the loss of her penis. Although later writers have challenged her ideas, she is, nonetheless, a pioneer in the study of female development.
She was a great-grandniece of Napoleon Bonaparte and the wife of Prince George of Greece. Her notebooks published asFive Copy Books(1952) tell of her very early fantasies between the ages 7 1/2 and 10, which reflect the loss of her mother at a very early age. Her psychoanalytic study of Poe,The Life and Works of E. A. Poe(1949), demonstrated the presence of the importance of his sexual impotence linked to a fixation on his dying mother.Topsy(1940) is a charming love story about her dog.
Rudolph Loewenstein, one of her many lovers who also included a prime minister of France, edited a festschrift for her seventieth birthdayDrives, Affects and Behavior: Essays in Honor of Marie Bonaparte(1952).
Marie Bonaparte’s generosity was extraordinary. She loaned Freud the money for his ransom by the Nazis. She supported Geza Roheim’s anthropological explorations, and she saved Freud’s letters to Wilhelm Fliess in spite of Freud’s wish that they be destroyed.
Attachment Theory - John Bowlby 1907-1990
John Bowlby, with Mary Ainsworth, is the founder of attachment theory which is a theory that explains ways in which infants establish ties to mothers or caregivers. Bowlby saw attachment as continuing into adult life. He wrote: “Evidence is accumulating that human beings of all ages are happiest...when they are confident that standing behind them, there are one or more trusted persons who will come to their aid should difficulties arise.”
His trilogyAttachment and Loss(Attachment1969,Separation: Anxiety and Anger1973,Loss: Sadness and Depression1980) spells out his views. Additional books includeThe Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds(1979) andA Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory(1988). Following World War II he wrote a groundbreaking report for the World Health Organization,Maternal Care and Mental Health(1951). Bowlby wrote a biography of Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin: A New Life (1990). There are two studies: Jeremy Holmes’sJohn Bowlby and Attachment Theory(1993) and Suzan VanDijken’s John Bowlby: His Early Life. A Biographical Journey into the Roots of Attachment Theory(1998).
The son of a surgeon, Bowlby completed his medical training at Cambridge but not before spending time as a counselor in a residential treatment center for children, an experience that had a lasting influence on his life. Bowlby trained at the British Psychoanalytic Institute where he developed an interest in the early family environment as opposed to the fantasy life of the child. Although at first a supporter of Melanie Klein’s work, he gradually drifted away from her theories. With Sylvia Payne, he exercised an important modulating influence during the Freud-Klein controversial discussions.
American Psychoanalyst - Abraham Arden Brill 1874-1948
A. A. Brill, the first to translate Freud’s writings into English, was a person of enormous energy and missionary zeal. Arriving penniless from Austria at age 15, he slept on floors of saloons in exchange for work and later taught English to foreigners for twenty-five cents a lesson. He graduated from New York University in 1898 and from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1903. After working in numerous hospitals, he met Freud and had what appears to be an informal analysis. Freud entrusted him as his translator although the quality of his translations has been criticized. In 1938, he publishedBasic Writings of Sigmund Freud, which introduced an entire generation to Freud.
For a time, Brill was the only analyst in America. He prodigiously wrote papers on topics that ranged from wit and humor, slips of the tongue, to the importance of smell. In spite of his loyalty and service to Freud, he was viewed with ambivalence by Freud. Among his writings are:Psychoanalysis: Its Theory and Application(1912),Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis(1921),Freud’s Contribution to Psychiatry (1944),Lectures on Psychoanalytic Psychiatry(1946).
Brill founded the New York Psychoanalytic Society in 1911 and was active in founding the American Psychoanalytic Association. He was vehement in his opposition to lay analysis in spite of Freud’s support of lay analysis.
The Abraham A. Bill Library at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Society is named in his honor. Although there is no official biography of Brill, material about Brill is available in Freud’s letters and biographies.
Female Psychology - Helene Deutsch 1884-1982
Helene Deutsch, the first important woman analyst in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, lived a long vital life both in Europe and the United States. Analyzed by Freud, her first analytic patient was Viktor Tausk. Later, she was in analysis with Karl Abraham in Berlin and at the Salzburg Conference, gave her first paper on women, which became “The Psychology of Women’s Sexual Functions.” Criticized by Karen Horney for equating women with masochism, her work has more recently been accepted by feminists because of her attention to problems posed by women’s identification with their mothers. Deutsch formulated a theory of “as if” identification and illustrated it with examples from such fictional works as Mann’s Felix Krull. Arriving in Boston from Vienna in 1935, she played a major role in the Boston Institute as she previously had for 10 years as Director of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute.
Her works include the two-volumeThe Psychology of Women(1944, 1945),Psychoanalysis of Neurosis(1932),Neurosis and Character Types(1965), andSelected Problems of Adolescence(1967). There is a major biography by Paul Roazen,Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life(1985), and an autobiography,Confrontations with Myself(1973). Her papers are collected by Paul Roazen inThe Therapeutic Process, the Self and Female Psychology(1992).
Kurt Eissler 1908–1999
Kurt Eissler was born in Vienna in 1908, studied psychology at the University and received a Ph.D. in 1934 under Professor Karl Buher. He was awarded his M.D. in 1937. He worked with August Aichhorn, a pioneer in treating adolescent delinquency, before narrowly escaping the Nazis after theAnschlussand emigrating to Chicago. In 1943 he volunteered for the U.S. Army and served as Captain in the Medical Corps. After World War II he moved to New York, where he remained until his death, writing and practicing to the end.
A superb clinician and a scholar of profound depth and erudition, Eissler introduced the term ‘parameters’ into clinical parlance and pioneered analytic investigations of creativity with books on Goethe, Leonardo, Shakespeare and Freud himself. He wrote prolifically, making major contributions to technique, theory and applied analysis. His rigorously scientific approach led him to revise and extend many of Freud’s ideas without rejecting established principles. The posthumously published bookFreud and the Seduction Theory(2001) definitively refuted erroneous claims that Freud had ignored the impact of extrapsychic trauma, while simultaneously providing a magnificent psychological explication of the evolution of genius.
As a co-founder and later Secretary of the Sigmund Freud Archives, Eissler virtually single-handedly created one of the world’s great biographical collections. He also established the Anna Freud Foundation, which provided crucial assistance to Anna Freud’s Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic.
His wife Ruth S. Eissler, herself a noted psychoanalyst, died in 1988.
Childhood and Society - Erik Erikson 1902–1994
Erik Erikson, who wrote of Gandhi and Martin Luther, and visited Indian tribes, was a major figure in educating Americans to the societal influences on childhood as well as expanding human development beyond the earliest influences of early childhood.
Born in Germany, Erikson wandered through Europe hoping to become an artist. He found himself in Vienna where he taught school and trained at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. His personal analysis with Anna Freud ended in 1933 when, in spite of Miss Freud’s assurance that the Nazis would never invade Austria, he left for America.
In the United States he first taught at Harvard, then Yale, then at the University of California where he left because of a loyalty oath requirement, then at The Austen Riggs Center and, finally, back to Harvard.
Erikson emphasized the creative qualities of the ego, developed a theory of ego development, and created eight developmental stages from basic trust versus mistrust in infancy, to parenthood, to integrity versus despair in old age. Libidinal stages and psychosexual development are incorporated into his epigenetic schema through his concept of organ modes. Major works include:Childhood and Society(1950),Gandhi’s Truth(1969), andYoung Man Luther(1959).Identity and the Life Cycle(1959) inaugurated the journal Psychological Issues and was followed byInsight and Responsibility(1964) andThe Life Cycle Completed: A Review(1982). There is an excellent biography by Lawrence J. Friedman,Identity’s Architect(1999), and Robert Coles’sErik H. Erikson: The Growth of His Work(1970) is worth reading.
Object Relations - W. Ronald D. Fairbairn 1889-1964
Ronald Fairbairn, though somewhat isolated in that he spent his entire career in Edinburgh Scotland, has had a profound influence on British object relations and the relational schools. For Fairbairn, libido is object seeking rather than pleasure seeking and the infant is oriented toward others from the beginning of life. Thus, Fairbairn proposes an alternate theory of motivation: a search for contact with others. Although Fairbairn never broke with Freud, his theory of development is not based on stages but on a maturational sequence of relations to others. Fairbairn wrote that impulses alone could not explain the disparate failures in human relations. Fairbairn’s work has had widespread influence on the study of the self, trauma, multiple personality, infant development, religion, and pastoral care.
Educated at Edinburgh University, he spent three years in divinity and Hellenic Greek studies and, after serving with General Allenby in the Palestinian campaign, he undertook medical training, taught psychology, practiced analysis and, on the basis of his writings, became a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society. There is a biography by John Sutherland,Fairbairn’s Journey into the Interior(1989) a study of his work by James Grotstein and R. B. Rinsley,Fairbairn and the Origins of Object Relations(1994), and an edited study by Neil J. Skolnik and David E. Scharff,Fairbairn Then and Now(1998). His works includePsychoanalytical Studies of the Personality(1952) andFrom Instinct to Self: Selected Papers of W. R. D. Fairbairn(1994).
The Encyclopedist - Otto Fenichel 1897–1946
Otto Fenichel, who wrote a comprehensive textbook of psychoanalysis, was a person of enormous energy, political awareness, and social conscience. Born in Vienna, he was active in youth movements as a student. Shortly after graduating from medical school, he began training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute where he gave a paper in 1918 at age 21. He completed his training in Berlin and in 1933, fearing the Nazis, left for Norway, then for Prague in 1936, and finally to Los Angeles in 1938.