Otto Fenichel

Otto Fenichel ( born December 2, 1897 in Vienna, † January 22, 1946 in Los Angeles ) was an Austrian psychoanalyst.

Life and work

Entered medical school Otto Fenichel in 1915 in Vienna. Early came Fenichel in the immediate environment of Sigmund Freud, whose lectures he attended during the years 1915-1919. 1920, at the age of 23, he became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

1922 Fenichel moved to Berlin, where he lived until 1933. A plaque - a glass panel in the series " With Freud in Berlin" - points since 2007 on his life and work.

In Berlin Fenichel received his specialist training in neurology and psychiatry at Karl Bonhoeffer and Richard Cassirer at the Charite. In 1931, he published a two-volume theory of the neuroses; later expanded in American exile and updated, based this work Fenichel's reputation as a " encyclopedist of psychoanalysis ".

In 1924 Fenichel together with Harald Schultz- Hencke at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, the so-called "Children Seminar", an association of younger analysts and training candidates, which served the informal discussion. In his Berlin period, the establishment of an informal group of Marxist -oriented psychoanalyst (1929 ) falls. During his emigration - 1934 to Oslo in 1935 to Prague in 1938 to Los Angeles - he organized with the help of top-secret, only for an "inner circle " certain newsletters contact between about a dozen in the world scattered group members. These newsletters, public only since 1998, are among the most important documents for the problematic history of psychoanalysis 1934-1945, especially the problem of audits initiated by Freud exclusion of Wilhelm Reich, who was initially a member of the group from the International Psychoanalytic Association.

On Otto Fenichel, the concept of organ neurosis goes back. Fenichel took the view that the compounds with fantasized social relationships are preserved during the konversionshysterischen form of body experience. For the purely vegetative related functional impairment, however, they would be lost fully or partially.

Fenichel, who had gained in Europe as a result of his writings and extensive review activity a reputation as a " polymath of psychoanalysis ", could not really get a foothold in American society. He died shortly after the publication of his major work "The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis ."

Writings

  • .. . Otto Fenichel: The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis, 3 vols, New York: WW Norton 1945 (Eng. ed and transl v. Klaus Laermann: Psychoanalytic theory of neurosis, 3 volumes, Olten / CH: Walter -Verlag 1974ff; edition 2005 casting: Psycho - social publishing ISBN 3-89806-468-9 ).
  • Otto Fenichel: The Collected Papers, 2 vols, New York:. WW Norton, 1954 ( dt hg and some with over v. Klaus Laermann: .. Papers, 2 volumes, Olten / CH: Walter -Verlag 1979, 1981 )
  • Otto Fenichel: psychoanalysis and society. Essays, ed. v. Christian Red [ i.e., Helmut Dahmer ], Frankfurt / M.: Red push- Stock 1972
  • Otto Fenichel: 119 Circular Letters, ed. v. John Reichmayr and Elke Mühlleitner, 2 volumes, Frankfurt / M.: Stroemfeld, 1998
  • Otto Fenichel: Problems of psychoanalytic technique ( Library of Psychoanalysis ), Gießen: Psycho Social Publishing House, 2001
Charité Harald Schultz-Hencke Marxism International Psychoanalytical Association Integrated Authority File
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