Georg Groddeck

Georg Walther GRODDECK ( born October 13, 1866 in Kösen, † June 11, 1934 in Knonau, Switzerland ) was a German doctor, writer and pioneer of psychosomatic medicine.

Family

Georg GRODDECK originated in the paternal line from a Danzig patrician family: his grandfather, the lawyer Carl August GRODDECK (1794-1877), mid-nineteenth century was appointed mayor in Danzig and elected the deputies of the Prussian National Assembly during the revolutionary year 1848. Georg GRODDECK - the youngest of five children - a son of bathing physician Carl Theodor GRODDECK (1826-1885) and his wife Karoline GRODDECK, born Kober Stein ( 1825-1892 ). Groddecks maternal grandfather, the German scholar August Kober stone, taught at the State School Pforta.

Life

His childhood was spent Georg GRODDECK at home in a close bond with his sister Caroline ( 1865-1903 ). At the country Pforta he put his Abitur in 1885 and began to study medicine at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, among others, Rudolf Virchow and Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer. From dermatologists Ernst Schweinger, the personal physician of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, GRODDECK received his doctorate. The title of his dissertation was: About the hydroxylamine and its use in the treatment of skin disease. From 1890 to 1891 GRODDECK worked in Berlin as an assistant to his mentor Schweinger. Based on its individualizing treatment methods he developed his own practices, especially with massage, bath therapy and dietetics.

Because George GRODDECK let finance his medical degree from the military, he had to actually be working for eight years as a medical officer in 1891. However, he could reach it, that he was relieved by activity in Brandenburg and in Weilburg an der Lahn in 1896 from the obligation. Then GRODDECK again worked as an assistant at Ernst Schweinger until 1897 in Berlin and then in Baden -Baden.

1896 married George GRODDECK and Else Neumann, Est von der Goltz. The marriage came from the daughter of Barbara GRODDECK ( 1901-1957 ). His second wife was George GRODDECK since 1923 with the Swede Emmy von Voigt, née Larsson ( 1874-1961 ), married. They had met in 1915. Emmy von Voigt translated The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud into Swedish.

In 1900 GRODDECK could open his own sanatorium with fifteen beds in Baden -Baden at the Villa Marie height. His patients were mostly chronically physically ill. Parallel to his activities as bathing and spa doctor he also held lectures, which he saw as part of his therapy. After funded by Sigmund Freud inclusion in the International Psychoanalytical Association in July 1920 Georg GRODDECK held in September 1920 on the VI. International Psychoanalytic Congress in The Hague a lecture he began with the words: I 'm a wild analyst. At the congress there were also first contacts with Sándor Ferenczi, Otto Rank, Ernst Simmel and Karen Horney. On the Seventh Congress, held in Berlin in late September 1922, GRODDECK wanted to speak The flight to the philosophy of his Es- term under the theme, but did upset about Freud few hours previously held lecture in which this his, stolen from GRODDECK and then changed it - concept had argued that only a " comical speech." Also due to its congress participations visited prominent colleagues such as Lou Andreas - Salomé, Frieda Fromm- Reichmann and Ernst Simmel sanatorium in Baden -Baden.

On a trip to Sweden met in 1924 in Stockholm Hermann Graf Keyserling and Georg GRODDECK. The encounter was for a GRODDECK lectures in the Darmstadt school of wisdom. Lectures he also held mid-twenties in the Lessing -Hochschule in Berlin.

He also founded a consumer cooperative in 1911 and entered 1912 as a founding member of the Non- Cooperative Baden -Baden. The association wanted to improve the living conditions of the workers and had since 1920 according to the plans of architect Paul Schmitthenner build the best settlement Ooswinkel as a garden city. GRODDECK was up to his forced resignation by the Nazis in September 1933 the Supervisory Board of Cooperative Baden -Baden. A walk to the River Oos on the edge of the existing settlement from just two streets reminiscent as well as a plaque on its social benefits.

After GRODDECK had held in Zurich still on June 2, 1934 a lecture " From seeing, from the world of the eye and of seeing without eyes ", his health deteriorated shortly thereafter; on June 11, he died at the sanatorium of Medard Boss in Knonau.

Correspondence

On May 27, 1917 Georg GRODDECK wrote a first letter to Sigmund Freud. From this developed a correspondence from both sides - was maintained - at irregular intervals. Freud was the first recipient of the Psychoanalytic letters to a friend, and he paved the way for GRODDECK International Psychoanalytic Publishing and the International Psychoanalytic Association. Even on the run in 1923 dispute about the history of the concept of the " It " also continued to letters, though sparse, replaced. The Freud 's biographer Max Schur writes:. GRODDECK it, called the " Es " coined, which then took over Freud, when he formulated the structure hypothesis was A similar result comes Octave Mannoni: The It's a term that Freud borrowed from Georg GRODDECK; this in turn has taken him from Nietzsche. Nietzsche again, the time may be borrowed from Lichtenberg: It thinks it should be said, as you say, it's flashing.

In September 1921, Sándor Ferenczi visited his colleague Georg GRODDECK in Baden -Baden. For this visit, a friendship that is documented in more than forty letters developed. It is above all get those letters that Ferenczi had written to GRODDECK and Michael Balint originally wanted to publish.

Services

In the years 1909-1917 Georg GRODDECK had been able to gather basic knowledge in the fields of depth psychology and psychosomatic medicine, for which he developed his own method:

The beginning of his journalistic services for Psychosomatic made ​​Georg GRODDECK 1917 with the brochure Mental conditionality and psychoanalytic treatment of organic disease, in which he - based on its own disease - a psychosomatic correlations clinically described and analyzed. From his observations raised GRODDECK the public demand to test the possibilities of psychoanalysis in the treatment of all organic diseases.

Groddecks therapies combined Naturopathic with psychoanalytic, suggestive and hypnotic elements. His arm and foot baths, massages, its dietary requirements are still being practiced today, though the bold doctrines of salvation, which he also presented his patients are valued today reserved. Unlike Freud GRODDECK dealt mainly with the chronically ill. GRODDECK is regarded by many as the founder of psychoanalytic psychosomatics, although the status of an outsider.

1986 in Zurich, among others founded by Otto Hunter Mountain, Claudia Honegger, Helmut Siefert and KD Wolff, Georg GRODDECK Society with the aim to publish Groddecks work and spread.

Membership

• Since 1920: International Psychoanalytical Association
• Since 1926: General Medical Society for Psychotherapy

Publications

• The woman. In: The educator 1909, Vol 13, Issue 18, pp. 137-142
• Nasamecu. The healthy and sick person depicted in common understandable. Hirzel, Leipzig 1913
• Mental conditionality and psychoanalytic treatment of organic disease. Hirzel, Leipzig 1917
• The soul searcher. A psychoanalytic novel. International Psychoanalytic Verlag, Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 1921
• The Book of the It. Psychoanalytic letters to a friend. International Psychoanalytic Verlag, Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 1923 New edition: The Book of the It. Psychoanalytic letters to a friend. 2 vols. Volume 1: Text belt. Volume 2: Manuscript Edition, Materials and letters. Edited by Samuel Müller in conjunction with tungsten GRODDECK. Stroemfeld, Frankfurt am Main 2004 ISBN 3-87877-832-5

• Sándor Ferenczi - Georg GRODDECK. Correspondence 1921 - 1933 Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1986 ISBN 3-596-26786-2
• Georg GRODDECK - Sigmund Freud: correspondence. Stroemfeld, Frankfurt am Main and Basel 2008 ISBN 978-3-86600-029-2