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Abstract
In this article the history and process of the founding of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) will be addressed. After World War II, the IFPS was the first international association of psychoanalysts established outside the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). Particular to the IFPS was the inclusion of psychoanalytic institutes and groups that were not members of the IPA; a liberal and open approach to new psychoanalytic methods and developments; and the waiver of imposed regulation – within a certain framework – on the terms of psychoanalytic training. In the received history of the psychoanalytic movement, non-IPA psychoanalysts have been neglected. This article intends to shed light on the organization of those so-called psychoanalytic dissidents, who identified as psychoanalysts, but were deemed by the IPA establishment “only” psychotherapists. The history of the IFPS provides material for the analysis of this important but difficult controversy, still markedly perceptible within the psychoanalytic community today.
Notes
2 Westerman Holstijn was significant for the prehistory of the IFPS, but in the end did not join. (For the following remarks about A.J. Westerman Holstijn, I thank Michael Schröter for his translation from Stroeken (Citation1997) and Stroeken (Citation2014). A.J. Westerman Holstijn (1891–1980), born the son of a Mennonite priest in the Netherlands, studied medicine and earned his doctorate in 1929 under the aegis of the psychiatrist and neurologist G. Jelgersma (1859–1942). He did his training analyses with J.H.W. van Ophuijsen and Theodor Reik, becoming a private lecturer at the University of Amsterdam in 1934. He resigned from the Dutch Psychoanalytic Association and thus from the IPA in 1936 because of disagreements. Westerman Holstijn, a headstrong, self-confident, and gifted organizer, well connected with many groups and associations, refused to be dictated to by the IPA regarding the training of psychoanalysts. He was also an advocate of national autonomy. In 1941 he refused to sign an Aryan declaration and therefore lost his position as a private lecturer. He founded the Nederlands Psychoanalytisch Genootschap (Dutch Psychoanalytic Society) in 1947 and became a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam again in 1952. His association clearly opposed lay analysts and advocated for the integration of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. He was a board member of the Dutch Association of Psychiatry and Neurology for 24 years, and its chairman in 1960.
3 Werner Schwidder (1917–1970) studied medicine in Leipzig and Berlin and began his psychoanalytic training in 1941 at the German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy. Schwidder became one of Schultz-Hencke’s most important students, with whom he also did his training analysis. From 1951 he built up the psychoanalytically influenced Landeskrankenhaus Tiefenbrunn near Göttingen and was its director from 1965 to 1970. From 1968 on, he was a professor at the University Hospital in Göttingen. Starting in 1953, together with Annemarie Dührssen and Felix Boehm, he edited the Journal of Psycho-Somatic Medicine. During the 1960s, his commitment to professional politics contributed to the health insurance companies covering the costs of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. He died of a heart attack during the IInd Workshop of the IFPS in Madrid.
4 Franz Heigl (1920–2001) was the first Secretary General of the IFPS between 1962 and 1972. He did his psychoanalytic training in Munich and Berlin and founded the Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Göttingen in 1954, together with Schwidder and Gottfried Kühnel. After Schwidder’s death, he took over the medical direction of the Tiefenbrunn State Hospital in 1971 and led it until 1985. With his wife Annelise Heigl-Evers, he developed psychoanalytic-interactional group therapy.
5 Franz Heigl had given a seminar on “The Humanistic Psychoanalysis of Erich Fromm” in the late 1950s and published it in three parts in the Journal of Psycho-Somatic Medicine, 7.Jg. 1960/61.
6 René Laforgue (1894–1962) was a psychiatrist and one of the first and best known psychoanalysts in France. He worked at the St-Anne Hospital in Paris and did his training analysis with Eugenie Sokolnicka. In 1926 he was a co-founder of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris.
7 Harald Schultz-Hencke (1892-1953) studied medicine and philosophy and did his psychoanalytic training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Training Institute in 1922. His training analysts were Sándor Radó and Felix Boehm. He became a lecturer at the Berlin Training Institute and published his first of six psychoanalytic textbooks in 1927. Because he criticized Freud’s libido theory and metapsychology, he belongs to the so-called dissidents of psychoanalysis. He remained in Berlin during the World War and became a teacher of many important psychoanalysts in postwar Germany.
8 Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in the US. His work founded the interpersonal school of psychoanalysis in which the meaning of the family and social influence were emphasized. On the life and work of Harry Stack Sullivan, see: Conci, M. (Citation2012).
9 Clara Thompson (1893-1958), U.S. American physician and psychoanalyst. She collaborated with Adolph Meyer and was a friend of Harry Stack Sullivan. Between 1928 and 1933 she spent extended periods of time in Budapest on several occasions, undergoing analysis with Sándor Ferenczi. She was president of the Washington-Baltimore Psychoanalytic Society and became a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society (NYPS) in 1936. Together with Fromm, Horney, and Sullivan, she founded the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (AAP) in 1941. In 1943, with Fromm, she founded the New York Institute of the Washington School of Psychiatry, William Alanson White Institute since 1946, and served as its director until 1958.
10 On the life and work of Edith Weigert-Vowinckel see: Holmes, M. (Citation2007).
11 DPG Archive 22/2. Letter Westerman Holstijn to Fromm dated Sept. 30, 1960. I thank R. Lockot for providing me with a copy of the letter.
12 DPG Archive 22/2. Letter Fromm to Westerman Holstijn, November 19, 1960. With thanks to R. Lockot.
13 Igor Caruso (1914–1981) studied psychology and philosophy in Leuven. He worked for a few months in 1942 in a children’s home in Vienna, where disabled children were mistreated and murdered. This period of his life has been researched and discussed since 2008. Caruso trained as a psychoanalyst in Vienna and founded psychoanalytic study groups in many countries after the war. His teaching brought psychoanalysis together with existentialism and Marxism.
14 DPG Archive 22/2. With thanks to R. Lockot.
15 Letter from Westerman Holstijn to Schwidder, August 15, 1964.
16 Letter from Wolffheim to Schwidder from July 18, 1961.
17 Medard Boss (1903–1990) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He underwent psychoanalysis with Freud and later became close friends with Martin Heidegger. In his Daseinsanalyse, elements of psychoanalysis were combined with Heidegger’s philosophy.
18 Sigmund Biran, MD, was an Israeli psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who lived in Tel-Aviv, Jaffa.
19 John A. Millet was President of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960.
20 The German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV) was founded in 1950 in a split from the DPG and shortly thereafter incorporated into the IPA. On the relationship between the DPG and the DPV, see later chapters in the book from which this chapter is taken.
21 Letter from Schwidder to Bally, January 14, 1961.
22 Letter from Westerman Holstijn to Schwidder from July 30, 1961.
23 Alexander to Westerman Holstijn from July 28, 1961.
24 Letter from Schwidder to Riemann from August, 8, 1961.
25 Ibid.
26 Willi Hoffer (1897–1967) was honorary vice president of the IPA at the time. From 1949 to 1959 he was the sole editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and from 1959 to 1962 president of the British Psychoanalytical Society.
27 Letter from Salzman to Westerman Holstijn dated August 13, 1961: “I am very sorry about the confused German situation. I agree with you that all the fuss about the politics of the German psychoanalytic societies is unnecessary and follocious [sic!]. It seems that Hoffer has sterred [sic!) up most of the trouble” (English original).
28 Letter from Westerman Holstijn to an unnamed colleague, probably Schwidder, dated July 17, 1961.
29 Letter from Schwidder to Westerman Holstijn, from July 28, 1961.
30 Ibid.
31 Minutes of the Extended Board Meeting of the DPG, August 10, 1961.
32 Tobias Brocher (1917–1998) was co-founder of the DGPT (German Society for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Depth Psychology) in 1949 and its chairman between 1964 and 1968. He was a member of the DPV. For more on his person see: Brocher (Citation1998).
33 Letter from Schwidder to Brocher from August 17, 1961.
34 The DGPT was founded in 1949 as an umbrella organization for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic societies in Germany that met the training standards of the DGPT. For the history of the DGPT, see the DGPT homepage.: “ Chronik zur Geschichte der Psychotherapie und zur Psychoanalyse von 1918 bis 1975” by Regine Lockot.
35 Letter from Judd Marmor to Joseph Sandler, June 28, 1977, and Letter from Judd Marmor and Jules Masserman to the Editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, undated.
36 Fritz Riemann (1902–1979), psychologist, did his psychoanalytic training in Berlin and his training analysis in 1934 with Therese Benedek, later with Felix Boehm and Harald Schultz-Hencke. He co-founded the Institute for Psychological Research and Psychoanalysis in Munich in 1946. Throughout his life he was also interested in astrology.
37 Annemarie Dührssen (1916–1998) was a physician and psychoanalyst. She did her psychoanalytic training during the 1940s in Berlin, mostly with Harald Schultz-Hencke. In the post-war period she was a member of the DPG. Between 1965 and 1984 she was director of the Central Institute for Psychogenic Diseases of the Berlin Versicherungsanstalt. Between 1971 and 1975 she was chairwoman of the DPG. From 1976 to 1985 she was Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the Free University of Berlin. She was the author of several books and founded the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine with Schwidder.
38 In Der Nervenarzt, 33. Jg., Heft 7, July 1962.
39 Bulletin to the members of the DPG dated January 6, 1962.
40 Letter from Westerman Holstijn to Alexander from July 18, 1961.
41 Leon Salzman (1915–2009) was an American psychiatrist who received his psychoanalytic training at the William Alanson White Institute. He was an associate of Harry Stack Sullivan. 1964–1965 Salzman was president of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis
42 Marianne Horney Eckardt (1913–2018) was one of Karen Horney’s three daughters. She was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York. From 1972 to 1973 she was president of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.
43 Letter from Westerman Holstijn to Chrzanowski from May 19, 1962.
44 Minutes of the General Assembly of the DPG of December 1, 1962.
45 See the presentation of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, citing their first president Janet Rioch: “The process of communication by forum is of value to encourage honest exchange of scientific opinion and observations; to build upon and expand those basic premises which survive critical scrutiny; to have the courage to discard that which cannot be regarded as scientifically valid in the light of or present knowledge” (Internet; accessed on June 2, 2020).
46 In the USA, restrictive regulations existed regarding the practice of psychoanalysis by non-physicians, some emanating from government agencies, and some established by the psychoanalytic associations themselves to prevent quackery and reinforce the desire to make psychoanalysis part of psychiatry (see May, 1982).
47 Letter from Schwidder to Westerman Holstijn from the end of August 1961.
48 Letter from Salzman to Westerman Holstijn December 10, 1961.
49 Fromm Archive: Letter from Heigl to Fromm dated April 9, 1961. With thanks to Rainer Funk, who made the letter available to me.
50 Invitation by Schwidder to the Extended Board Meeting of the DPG in August 1961.
51 Ibid.
52 Letter from Schwidder to Westerman Holstijn from the end of August 1961.
53 Letter from Schwidder to Weiss dated August 2, 1961.
54 Letter from Fromm to Schwidder of August 7, 1961.
55 Letter from Chrzanowski to Schwidder from October 10, 1961.
56 In a letter of January 14, 1961, from Fromm to Schwidder, Fromm suggested that representatives of the WAW Institute also be consulted regarding the founding of a new organization, since the institute that he and Harry Stack Sullivan had founded some 15 years earlier “represents one of the most important psychoanalytic training institutes in America.”
57 Heigl to the DPG, January 6, 1962.
58 Ibid.
59 Cf. minutes of the General Assembly of the DPG from December 01, 1962, and the minutes of the William Alanson White Society.
60 Psychologists were also able to train as psychoanalysts at the William Alanson White Institute.
61 Rose Spiegel (who died in 1997) was an American physician who trained at the William Alanson White Institute. She did her training analysis with Clara Thompson and a second analysis with Fromm. In 1962 she was president of the WAWS, and in 1964 she founded the Journal of Contemporary Psychoanalysis with Max Deutscher. (See “Women Psychoanalysts,” Biographical Encyclopedia; accessed June 3, 2020). https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/
62 Cf. the minutes of the WAWS of November 1996.
63 Cf. minutes of the General Assembly of the DPG from December 1, 1962.
64 Ibid.
65 Cf. Bulletin No. 5 of the International Section of the Working Groups on Depth Psychology.
66 Minutes of the General Assembly of the DPG of Dec. 01, 1962.
67 See Report 1969.
68 Ibid.
69 Letter from Westerman Holstijn to Millet from August 8, 1963.
70 Letter from Schwidder to Westerman Holstijn from January 24, 1963.
71 Confidential letter to the members of the Vienna Working Group and the Associated Working Groups dated February 1, 1964; with thanks to Edith Frank-Rieser, who made the letter available to me from the Caruso archives.
72 Cf. Bulletin No. 5 of the International Section of the Working Groups on Depth Psychology.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andrea Huppke
Andrea Huppke is a psychoanalyst, group analyst, supervisor, and training analyst in Berlin, Germany. She has written several publications in the field of the history of psychoanalysis, most of them published in Luzifer-Amor, the journal for the history of psychoanalysis. She wrote her dissertation about the first 20 years of the IFPS and the position of dissidents in the field of history of psychoanalysis; it was published in 2021.