Carl Mueller-Braunschweig, psychiatrist, philosopher, psychoanalyts (1881 -- 1958) | NCP-LA

Name: Carl Mueller-Braunschweig, psychiatrist, philosopher, psychoanalyts (1881 -- 1958)

Historical Note:

Müller-Braunschweig studied philosophy with Jonas Cohn, Heinrich Rickert, Cay von Brockdorff, Paul Menzer, Carl Stumpf, Georg Lasson and, most importantly, Alois Riehl. His studies also included physics, biology, history, and political economy. After finishing his medical studies, particularly in psychiatry, with Karl Bonhoeffer (1912-1914), he completed his training by undergoing analysis with Karl Abraham, and then Hanns Sachs. He was a member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Association (BPV) from 1919, in charge of training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute (BPI), and became a member of the Executive Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) in 1925. Following the Nazi rise to power in 1933 he was appointed provisional president of the "Aryanized" committee of the German Psychoanalytic Society (DPG). In this capacity he worked as editor, treasurer, training analyst, and president of the candidates's commission, and broadly concentrated on adapting the institute ideologically to the National Socialist regime.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.65em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: lato, helveticaneue-light, "helvetica neue light", "helvetica neue", Helvetica, Arial, "lucida grande", sans-serif;"> In 1938 Matthias H. Göring appointed him administrator in charge of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, the Berlin polyclinic and psychoanalytic publications, but he failed in this last mission because the National Socialists questioned his loyalty. He was then prohibited from conducting personal and training analysis, as well as from teaching in the Göring Institute, a prohibition he later invoked when claiming to be a "victim" of the Nazis.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.65em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: lato, helveticaneue-light, "helvetica neue light", "helvetica neue", Helvetica, Arial, "lucida grande", sans-serif;"> On October 16, 1945, he was commissioned to reconstruct the DPG and appointed president of the society. In spite of his Jungian affinities (he had undergone some analysis with the Jungian Gertrud Weller), he found himself viewed as the representative of orthodox psychoanalysis. His intense personal and theoretical disputes with Harald Schultz-Hencke, the medical founder of neoanalysis who had succeeded in winning government recognition for the profession (psychoanalysis and psychotherapies were financed by social security in the Zentralinstitut für psychogene Erkrenkungen [Central Institute for Psychogenic Diseases]), found their epilogue in an official confrontation at the first post-war congress of the IPA, held in Zurich in 1949. This led to the creation of the German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV) on June 10, 1950, which then began to offer classic training in the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. Members who had stayed in the DPG were angry with their president for secretly forming a new association.