Hermann "Herman" Nunberg (; 23 January 1884 – 20 May 1970) was a Polish-born American
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a talk th ...
and
neurologist
Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the ...
.
Life
Nunberg was born in 1884 in
Będzin
Będzin (; also seen spelled ''Bendzin''; ) is a city in the Dąbrowa Basin, in southern Poland. It lies in the Silesian Highlands, on the Czarna Przemsza River (a tributary of the Vistula River, Vistula). Even though part of Silesian Voivodeship ...
which was then part of
Congress Poland
Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
. He earned his medical degree in 1910 from the
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...
, where he assisted
Carl Gustav Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a ...
at the
Burghölzli
Burghölzli, named after the wooded hill in the district of Riesbach in southeastern Zürich where it is located, is the ''Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Zürich'' ('Psychiatric University Hospital Zürich'), a psychiatric hospital in Switzerl ...
Psychiatric Clinic with
word association tests. For a short time he practised
psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior.
...
in
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen (; ; ; ; ), historically known in English as Shaffhouse, is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of Schaffh ...
and
Bern
Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...
, and in 1912 he taught classes at the university clinic in
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
. In 1914 he became an assistant to
Julius Wagner-Jauregg in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, where for several years he taught classes on
neurology
Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...
, and where in 1915 he joined the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.
He remained in Vienna until 1932 when he emigrated to the United States and worked in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. While in New York he was a member of the
New York Psychoanalytic Society, of which he was president from 1950 until 1952.
He died in New York City.
Writings and work
In 1932, copies of his lectures were published (translated in 1955 as a book titled "Principles of Psychoanalysis, Their Application to the Neuroses"); and in the preface of the 1932 publication, an impressed
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
wrote that it:
"contains the most complete and conscientious presentation of a psycho-analytic theory of the neurotic processes which we at present possess".
Nunberg was an early advocate (1918) of required "
training analysis
A training analysis is a psychoanalysis undergone by a candidate (perhaps a physician with specialty in psychiatry or a psychologist) as a part of her/his training to be a psychoanalyst; the (senior) psychoanalyst who performs such an analysis is c ...
" sessions for psychoanalysts in training. He also spoke up strongly in favor of
lay analysis, suggesting that behind opposition to it stood non-theoretical motives “such as medical prestige and motives of an economic nature”.
Ernest Jones
Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...
noted Nunberg as one of the few proponents for Freud’s
Death drive
In classical psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, the death drive () is the Drive theory, drive toward destruction in the sense of breaking down complex phenomena into their constituent parts or bringing life back to its inanimate 'dead' state, often ...
.
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...
however considered that Nunberg revealed something of his own
grandiosity
In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. It may be expressed by exaggerated beliefs regarding one's abilities, the belief that few other peopl ...
in his meditations upon the relations between the life and the death forces.
Nunberg's articles on ‘The Will to Recovery’ (1926) and ‘On the Theory of Therapeutic Results of Psychoanalysis’ (1937) reveal his interest in the curative aspects of analysis. Lacan singled out the former piece as showing (in humorous fashion) the inherent ambiguities in the neurotic’s search for cure: “to restore peace in his home...the patient admits to a desire, in the form of a temporary suspension of his presence at home, the opposite of what he came to propose as the first aim of his analysis”.
[J Lacan, ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis'' (Penguin 1994) p. 138]
See also
*
Apprentice complex
*
Depersonalization
Depersonalization is a dissociative phenomenon characterized by a subjective feeling of detachment from oneself, manifesting as a sense of disconnection from one's thoughts, emotions, sensations, or actions, and often accompanied by a feeling of ...
*
Franz Alexander
References
Sources
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nunberg, Hermann
1884 births
1970 deaths
Austrian psychiatrists
Analysands of Paul Federn
Austrian emigrants to the United States