Trigant Burrow

Trigant Burrow ( born September 7, 1875 in Norfolk, Virginia; † May 24, 1950 in Westport, Connecticut ) was an American psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, psychologist, and - in addition to Joseph H. Pratt and Paul Schilder - founder of group analysis. Inventor of the term neuro- dynamics.

Life and work

Trigant Burrow was the youngest of four children of a well-off family of French descent. His father was an educated Protestant freethinker, his mother, however, a committed Catholic. He first studied literature at Fordham University, then medicine at the University of Virginia ( PhD MD in 1900 ), and finally psychology at Johns Hopkins University ( Ph.D., 1909). While he worked at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, he was - presented two European doctors who were currently on a lecture tour of the United States - at the break of a theatrical performance: Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. That same year, Burrow went with his family to Zurich to can be analyzed one year of Jung. After his return he practiced until 1926 as a psychoanalyst in Baltimore. In 1911 he was one of the founders of the American Psychoanalytic Association, as its president in 1924 and 1925 served over the years. In 1926 the Burrow The Lifwynn Foundation for Laboratory Research in Analytic and Social Psychiatry and published his first major work, The Social Basis of Consciousness. Until his death Burrow worked as a Research Director of the Foundation and focused particularly on the physiological basis of harmonious coexistence and competing against each other within groups and societies, but also between countries. His brain electronic measurements and an analysis of specific eye movements made ​​him the father of Neuro psychotherapy and trauma therapy such as EMDR.

Founder of group analysis

He had himself from one of his Lehranalysanden, Clarence Shields, analyze 1921. The students had criticized the authority gradient analysis and requested by his teacher sincerity. Burrow felt it was a shock when he realized " that, analytical attitude and authoritarian attitudes are inseparable from each other in individual application. " In role reversal of analyst and patient finally became clear that both blind spots, social conventions and massive defense showed. This distortion of the analytical work was indispensable due in the eyes of Trigant Burrow on the analytical relationship between two people. Clarification work and the reduction of neurotic shifts of feeling and perception seemed to him and Clarence Shields only in the group constellation possible. The two asked former patients, relatives and colleagues, among them the Swiss psychiatrist Hans Syz to participate in group meetings. Trigant Burrow coined the term group analysis and wrote three basic texts, which appeared 1924-1927 in the original language.

Then Burrow fell in Freud in disgrace. The father of psychoanalysis called Burrows texts even as " confused drivel ". Freud had the treatment on the couch among other reasons institutionalized because it loaded the constant eye contact with a single patient or a single patient and irritated. In one - seated in a circle - group, however, the analyst the direct attention of all present was exposed. This method of treatment appeared Freud prohibitive. These certainly came Freud's break with Jung in 1913.

Psychoanalysis as a social science

Based on the conviction that psychoanalysis must be developed to group analysis, Burrows developed his concept of psychoanalysis as a social science. While the analytical relationship between two people is subjective arrested and characterized by defense, all participants in the group to study the apparent walking in front of emotional processes, by sharing their different perceptions and identify analytically consensually. Occurs only in the group - in the plurality of positions - so to speak the truth, only in the group can society-wide prominent defense mechanisms become visible.

Also in terms of cultural theory came Burrow because of its findings in the opposite position to Freud. Because Burrow took the position that humanity had evolved away from civilization to a state of relative harmony - way to fight everyone against everyone, with emphasis on the pairs of opposites, right / wrong and good / bad. This destructive interpersonal dynamics would make Burrow and reduce visible to the group analysis to then to Phyloanalyse ( genus analysis, " society-wide analysis of existing pathological relationship structures ", ie ) to compress. Dieter Sandner has shown in several papers that " two classics of the group analysis," SHFoulkes and Alexander Wolf essential suggestions from Burrow took over and implemented. The Burrow reception thickens increasingly since the early 90s.

Target

Burrows defines the need to devote my life's work an effort that contribute what I was able to rekindle the spark that was needed to elucidate the nature of abnormal mental states.

Important publications

  • The Social Basis of Consciousness, London 1927
  • The Structure of Insanity. (A Study in Phylopathology ). London 1932
  • German: The structure of mental illness: A study in Phylopathologie. From d Engl transl. by Miriam Bredow. Leipzig: G. Thieme 1933
  • The Biology of Human Conflict, New York 1937
  • The Neurosis of Man, London 1949
  • Science and Man's Behavior, New York 1953
  • The Structure of Insanity, The selected letters of Trigant Burrow with biographical notes, New York 1958
  • Preconscious Foundations of human Experiences, New York, London, 1964

Basic texts on group analysis

  • (1926 ) The group method in the Psychoanaylse, Imago 12, 211-222
  • (1928 ) The laboratory method in psychoanalysis, its beginning and its development, Intern. Journal of Psychoanalysis 14, 375-386
  • (1998) The foundation of the group analysis or the analysis of the reactions of normal and neurotic people, Lucifer Cupid: 11/ 21, 104-113

Secondary literature

  • Dieter Sandner: The rationale of group analysis by Trigant Burrow. Its importance to modern group analysis. In: Alfred Pritz, Elisabeth Vykoukal ( eds): group psychoanalysis. Theory - Technology - Application. 2nd revised edition. Facultas, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85076-578-4, (library psychotherapy 10 ), pp. 135-160.
  • Dieter Sandner: Trigant Burrow. In: Gerhard Stumm include: individual lexicon of psychotherapy. Springer, Wien, among others 2005, ISBN 3-211-83818- X, pp. 79-81.
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