Hermann Nunberg

Hermann Nunberg ( born January 23, 1884 in Bendzin, Russian Empire, now Poland, † May 20, 1970 in New York City ) was a Polish psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and student of Sigmund Freud, who worked from 1914 in Vienna and 1933 in the United States emigrated.

Life and work

Nunberg grew up in his birthplace, in Czestochowa and Krakow, where he began his study of medicine. He went to Zurich, attended lectures by Eugen Bleuler and CG Jung, received his doctorate in 1910, the Psychoanalytic group joined and worked in hospitals in Schaffhausen and Bern.

In 1912 he returned to Krakow, worked at the university clinic and in the summer months in the private clinic of the analyst Ludwig Jekels in Bistrai in Bielsko. When the war started he moved to Vienna, where he worked at the psychiatric clinic of the University under Julius Wagner -Jauregg and his successor Otto Pötzl. Nunberg 1915 was a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society ( UPU ) and completed a training analysis with Paul Federn. In 1925 he became a training analyst and supervising analysts - among other things of SH Foulkes and Lili Roubiczek - Peller - and the UPU ordered him in the same year as secretary. In 1929 he married Margarete Rie. In 1931 he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1932 he published his most important book, the General theory of the neuroses based on psychoanalytic basis:

"This book [ ... ] contains the most complete and conscientious representation of a psychoanalytic theory of neurotic processes that we currently own. Who is to simplify and smooth execution of the relevant problems to do, which is scarcely satisfy this work. Who but scientific thinking preferred knows it to be considered as merit, whom the speculation, the reins of the experience will never leave and who can enjoy the beautiful diversity of mental functioning which will appreciate this work and study diligently. "

Nunberg was a Social Democrat and decided 1933 - due to the political changes in Germany and Austria - to emigrate to the United States, first to Pennsylvania in 1934 to New York. He tried in 1934 - at that time in vain - to persuade Sigmund Freud to emigrate. The offer of a lectureship in Vienna he struck out in 1936.

Nunberg 1940, member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, 1950 its president. In 1960 he held the Freud Anniversary Lecture at the New York Academy of Medicine. Nunberg has participated in numerous international conferences and committed itself since 1918 to enforce the training analysis as a professional requirement of the psychoanalyst.

Nunberg made ​​important contributions to the history of psychoanalysis. Paul Federn decreed in his will that in his possession records of the so-called Mittwochsgesellschaft from the founding days of psychoanalysis should be jointly published by his son Ernst springs and Nunberg, then what happened in 1962 in multi-volume editions in several languages. Together with Kurt Eissler, Heinz Hartmann, Ernst Kris, and Bertram Lewin founded Nunberg 1951, the Sigmund Freud Archives, which led to the Library of Congress to build the Freud Collection.

Important publications

• General theory of the neuroses based on psychoanalytic basis. With a foreword by Sigmund Freud. Huber, Bern 1932, 1959, 1971; Principles of Psychoanalysis, International Universities Press, New York 1955
• (Ed., together with Ernst springs): Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. 4 volumes. English: Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, New York: International Universities Press 1962-1976
• S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1976-1981
• Revision. Psycho- Social -Verlag, Giessen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89806-598-6
• French: Les premiers psych analystes. Gallimard