Psychoanalysis in Nazi Germany: A Dark Chapter in History

Psychoanalysis as a theory and its application in clinical, educational, and other spheres was influenced by each country’s conditions.

Freud’s works were translated into several languages:

French
English
Spanish 🌍
Italian Russian

In the Soviet Union in the 1920s, some government officials initially supported psychoanalysis despite the official communist doctrine of limiting the spread of scientific knowledge from capitalist countries (Shiraev, 2016).

🧩These officials believed that psychoanalysis could help reveal the psychological weaknesses and flaws of individuals living in a capitalist society.

Several Soviet scholars received government funding to start psychoanalytic centers.

🎞️🎞️Sabrina Spielrein (1885–1942)

Soviet psychoanalyst and former patient and confidante of Jung, returned to the Soviet Union to use psychoanalysis in her work with children. Her life was popularized in the 2011 Hollywood movie A Dangerous Method, in which Keira Knightley played her role (Shiraev, 2016).

📅1930s

📅📅Soviet Union's support for psychoanalysis ended
🌍🌍 Psychoanalysis theorizes the power of unconscious processes and this did not align with the communist ideology.
🌍Communists believed that all inner conflicts within someone would disappear once they were placed in conditions of what they called social equality under communism (Shiraev, 2016).
🌍🧩🧩 From the 1930's to the 1980s psychologists in the Soviet Union could only write or teach about Freud and his views from a critical perspective.

🟥 Psychoanalysis was labeled Jewish science and this allowed Germany to openly attack professors and clinicians (Shiraev, 2016).

🟥In 1933 The Nazi Party rose to power.

🟥Germany collected and burned Freud's books🟥Anyone who studied or taught psychoanalysis was punished

Only a few managed to emigrate from Germany to the United States or other countries; many others died in concentration camps. Psychoanalysis was soon officially banned in Germany as both a theory and treatment method (Shiraev, 2016).

References