Jewish Origins Of The Psychoanalytic Movement

Dennis B. Klein explores the Jewish consciousness of Freud and his followers and the impact of their Jewish self-conceptions on the early psychoanalytic movement. Using little-known sources such as the diaries and papers of Freud's protégé Otto Rank and records of the Vienna B'nai B'rith that document Freud's active participation in that Jewish fraternal society, Klein argues that the feeling of Jewish ethical responsibility, aimed at renewing ties with Germans and with all humanity, stimulated the work of Freud, Rank, and other analysts and constituted the driving force of the psychoanalytic movement.

On 23rd July 1908 Sigmund Freud wrote to his colleague Karl Abraham: "Rest assured that if my name were Oberhuber an obviously non-Jewish name, in spite of everything my innovations would have met with far less resistance."From its beginning, psychoanalysis has been seen as a Jewish affair, and psychoanalysts have always been afraid of ending up in the position of the Jew - that of the outsider. In A Dangerous Legacy: Judaism and Psychoanalysis Hans Reijzer examines how psychoanalysts have managed that fear, in the recent past and in the present. During his research, which led him to Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Jerusalem, Hamburg, and Durban, Reijzer encountered malicious as well as enlightening statements, situations, and incidents. A Dangerous Legacy is a striking study of an interesting area of research. Reijzer's conclusion is surprising: stereotypes about Jews are a factor not only in the everyday world but also in the psychoanalytic world as soon as Jews take part in it.

Freud in Zion tells the story of psychoanalysis coming to Jewish Palestine/Israel. In this ground-breaking study psychoanalyst and historian Eran Rolnik explores the encounter between psychoanalysis, Judaism, Modern Hebrew culture and the Zionist revolution in a unique political and cultural context of war, immigration, ethnic tensions, colonial rule and nation building. Based on hundreds of hitherto unpublished documents, including many unpublished letters by Freud, this book integrates intellectual and social history to offer a moving and persuasive account of how psychoanalysis permeated popular and intellectual discourse in the emerging Jewish state.

This book presents readers with the fascinating story of the history of psychoanalysis during the time of the British Mandate in Palestine and the early days of Israel's statehood. During the 1920s and 1930s, and particularly with the rise of anti-Semitism in Central and Eastern Europe, the Nazi rise to power in Germany, and the invasion of Austria, disciples of Freud began arriving in Palestine and laying a foundation for the psychoanalytic movement in the country. They included Dorian Feigenbaum, Montague David Eder, Max Eitingon, Moshe Wulff, Josef Friedjung, and Grete Obernik-Reiner. Freud's theories would not have been accepted in the circles of the Jewish community were it not for the efforts of these followers of psychoanalysis, who worked with enthusiasm and determination to introduce Freudian methods into hospitals, educational institutions, social services, the Hebrew University, and kibbutzim, in particular the kibbutzim of HaShomer HaTza'ir. Guido Liebermann paints a colorful and lively portrait of figures such as Aryeh Feigenbaum, Siegfried van Vriesland, Henrietta Szold, David Idelsohn, Zvi Sohar, and Shmuel Golan, who called on the Jewish People to acknowledge its indebtedness to the Jewish genius from Vienna, the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Freud's methods made it possible to provide attention and treatment to thousands of war orphans, Holocaust survivors, kibbutz children, and children of immigrants from Arab countries. Guido Liebermann is a psychoanalyst and member of the Freudian Psychoanalytic Society (Paris), a historian and member of the International Society for the History of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, a senior clinical psychologist in a state psychiatric hospital in central Israel, and the author of many articles and two books: La psychanalyse en Palestine 1918-1948. Aux origines du mouvement analytique israélien, CampagnePremière/, 2012 (published in Spanish and Hebrew; Portuguese edition forthcoming), and La psychanalyse à l'épreuve du kibboutz, CampagnePremière/, 2014 (published in Spanish and Hebrew as well).

The work is a history of Jewish beliefs regarding the concept of the soul, the idea of resurrection, and the nature of the afterlife. The work describes these beliefs, accounts for the origin of these beliefs, discusses the ways in which these beliefs have evolved, and explains why the many changes in belief have occurred. Views about the soul, resurrection, and the afterlife are related to other Jewish views and to broad movements in Jewish thought; and Jewish intellectual history is placed within the context of the history of Western thought in general. That history begins with the biblical period and extends to the present time.

Is psychoanalysis a "Jewish science"? Ten essays contributed by the editor and distinguished scholars explore the Jewishness of psychoanalysis, its origins in the Jewish situation of late nineteenth century Europe, Freud's Jewishness and the Jewishness of his early colleagues. They also exemplify what the psychoanalytic approach can contribute to the study of Judaism. Clinical studies illuminate the issue of Jewish identity and psychological significance of the bar mitzvah experience. Theoretical essays throw light on Jewish history, Jewish social and communal behavior, Jewish myths and legends, religious ideas and thoughts.What are the major determinants of Jewish identity? What is the role of Jewish education in establishing and maintaining Jewish identity? What does the Midrash tell us about the meaning of anxiety to the traditional Jew, and how does Judaism attempt to deal with anxiety? What strategies have Jews used to survive an anti-Jewish world? Under what circumstances has the compliant posture of Johanen ben Zakkai been celebrated, and under what circumstances the defiance of the martyrs of Massada?

Psychoanalysis has always grappled with its Jewish origins, sometimes celebrating them and sometimes trying to escape or deny them. Through exploration of Freud's Jewish identity, the fate of psychoanalysis in Germany under the Nazis, and psychoanalytic theories of anti-Semitism, this book examines the significance of the Jewish connection with psychoanalysis and what that can tell us about political and psychological resistance, anti-Semitism and racism.

Freud's own account of the development of the institutions of psychoanalysis, and of his splits with Adler and with Jung.