Abstract
The paper examines on the one hand the influence of the Berlin Institute in the 1920s on Franz Alexander's training and on his later work, as it was a workshop aiming to test the possibilities of a large utilization of psychoanalytic therapy in an institutional framework. On the other hand, the spirit of experimentation of Sándor Ferenczi and the endeavor to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of psychoanalysis by the use of countertransference and emotional exchange also became important for Alexander. A glimpse of recent researches on Freud's timetable gives background information with possible comparisons between Freud's technique and that of Alexander.
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Notes
Franz Alexander (1891–1964) was born in Budapest. His father, Bernát Alexander, was a well-known professor of philosophy at the Budapest University. Alexander received his medical degree in 1912 from the Medical School of Budapest. When he was a young medical student, Alexander's father introduced him to Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (1900), to possibly review it for the Journal of Philosophy, which the father edited. Alexander read it and skeptically commented to his father, “This may not be philosophy, but it is certainly not medicine” (Alexander, 1960, p. 50). Sandor Ferenczi introduced him to Freud before WWI. After he left Budapest for Berlin in 1920, Alexander entered psychoanalysis with Hanns Sachs and then became a training analyst of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in 1926 (Mészáros, 2008). At a Washington, DC, meeting of the American Association for Mental Health in 1930, he was invited to move to Chicago to organize a psychoanalytic institute at the University of Chicago, with himself as professor (Alexander, 1960; Rubins, 1978, p. 127). In Chicago, Alexander established the first and, until 1948, only outpatient clinic of the American Psychoanalytic Society. He held the post of Director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis for 25 years. Alexander was reputed to have been a brilliant thinker, and was a prolific writer on wide-ranging topics such as adolescent delinquency, mind-body dynamics, and psychoanalytic technique. He died in California. He is remembered for his researches in psychosomatic medicine, his experimentations with briefer psychoanalytic therapy, and his work on corrective emotional experience.
Let us note that in 1920, the Berlin Institute was not yet organised the way it was later, when it achieved nearly legendary status. The founders of the Berlin Society and Poliklinik formally opened the Psychoanalytic Institute of the Berlin Society in March 1923. The requirements for training were: didactic analysis, theoretical training, and supervised clinical work, as outlined in the “Directions for the education of psychoanalytic psychotherapists”, the work of Max Eitingon's Committee (see Makari, 2008).
In French, this was later called “tranches d’analyse”. Eitingon (1923) writes, “When the patient has attained to a considerable measure of efficiency and capacity for life we sometimes break off the analysis at this point […]. He may […] come back if it is not sufficient. Thus resumed, the treatment often proceeds at a quicker rate” (p. 265).
In the context of Alexander's major book (with French), Psychoanalytic Therapy (1946), the ensuing dialogues and even disputes sometimes concentrated on the question of “pure” psychoanalysis versus psychotherapy. In the meantime, the great emphasis that had been placed on the distinction of these two procedures has somewhat faded away. In those times, it may have been driven by political organizational concerns (“unity of the doctrine”).
Ferenczi and similarly Alexander are rarely quoted directly, but many of their ideas were taken up later by schools outside the US mainstream psychoanalysis.
This “new object” can also be compared to what Kohut later called self-object.
Perhaps what was also disturbing for some analysts of these times was the convergence with other techniques such as behavioural ones.
Certain quests of Alexander, especially the question of efficiency and efficacy of psychoanalysis, are still relevant. Others now seem open to debate. His heritage should be re-evaluated, although this cannot be a simple return to it, but a revisiting in a dialogue with him.
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An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Chicago IPA Congress, in August 2009.
1M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, Swiss Psychoanalytic Society (IPA); Emeritus and Honorary Professor, University of Geneva, Switzerland; Past Visiting Professor, Stanford University, US; Fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, New York.
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Haynal, A. Corrective Emotional Experience Remembered. Am J Psychoanal 71, 207–216 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2011.19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ajp.2011.19