The 1952–1953 Chestnut Lodge Seminar on Intuition and Empathy in the Treatment of Schizophrenia: Launching Alberta Szalita’s Focus on Empathy

Abstract

This article presents background to, and the text of an organizational meeting of, a historic Chestnut Lodge seminar organized by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and including herself and Marvin Adland, Donald Burnham, Harold Searles, and Alberta Szalita. It forms the foundation for Szalita’s interest in empathy, which then was the organizing concept of her paper given as the 18th Frieda Fromm-Reichmann Memorial Lecture. The transcript gives us an opportunity to observe these great contributors to our understanding of the psychodynamics of schizophrenia as they exchange ideas and reactions regarding the transcript of recorded sessions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ann-Louise S. Silver

Ann-Louise S. Silver, MD, is a teaching analyst at the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, is on the faculty of the Washington School of Psychiatry, is an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and is the founding past president (1998–2008) of the U.S. chapter of the International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Psychoses (http://www.isps-us.org).