Oskar Pfister

Oskar Pfister Robert ( born February 23, 1873 in Wiedikon; † August 6, 1956 in Zurich; homeland justified in Zurich ) was a Swiss Reformed pastor and psychologist.

Life

Oskar Pfister was the son of a Reformed pastor. He studied Protestant theology, philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Basel, Zurich and Berlin. In 1898 he earned his doctorate at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zurich on the philosophy of religion Alois Emanuel Biedermann.

From 1897 to 1920 he was a minister in the forest. In 1920 he took a pastorate in Zurich, which he held until 1939. Pfister maintained relations with the religious socialists of Leonhard Ragaz. Between 1909 and 1939 he corresponded regularly with Sigmund Freud on theology and psychoanalysis. He was one of the pioneers of psychoanalysis in Switzerland and belonged to the circle of the Zurich school of psychoanalysis to Eugen Bleuler and Carl Gustav Jung. In 1919 he was co-founder of the Swiss Society for Psychoanalysis. He wrote the first theological appreciation of the psychology of Sigmund Freud, particularly the book The Future of an Illusion.

In 1934 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva.

Oskar Pfister Award

In memory of Oskar Pfister, the American Psychiatric Association awards together with the Association of Professional Chaplains for extraordinary interdisciplinary contributions on religion and psychiatry Oskar Pfister Award. Past recipients include: Jerome D. Frank, Victor Frankl, Hans Küng, Oliver Sacks, James W. Fowler, Ana -Maria Rizzuto, Allen E. Bergin and Irvin Yalom.

Writings

• Christianity and fear: A psychology of religion, historical and religious- hygienic investigation. Zurich, Artemis 1944