Maria Johanna Moltzer (

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, 6 January 1874 –

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, 6 December 1944) was a Dutch-Swiss

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 ...

. She was a significant early collaborator of

Carl 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 Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

. Moltzer was credited as the initial inspiration for Jung's formulation of the ''

anima Anima may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Anima, in the Spira world in ''Final Fantasy'' games * Anima, in the ''Fire Emblem'' game series * Anima (comics), a DC Comics character Film * '' Anima – Symphonie pha ...

'' archetypeSonu Shamdasani, ''Cult Fictions: C.G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology'' (London: Routledge, 1998), 16, 57ff. and the discovery of the

intuitive Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning or needing an explanation. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledg ...

type made famous by Jung in

Psychological Types ''Psychological Types'' () is a book by Carl Jung that was originally published in German by Rascher Verlag in 1921, and translated into English in 1923, becoming volume 6 of '' The Collected Works of C. G. Jung''. In the book, Jung proposes f ...

.Sonu Shamdasani, ''Cult Fictions: C.G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology'' (London: Routledge, 1998), 40f.

Early years

Moltzer grew up in Amsterdam, in a wealthy and prosperous family. Her father, Christiaan Nicolaas Jacob Moltzer, was the director of the

Bols Bols may refer to: * Bol (music), an element of Indian rhythm * Lucas Bols, a Dutch distilling company * Bols (brand) Bols is a brand name used by Lucas Bols, a Dutch distiller of alcoholic beverages. The brand line consists of vodkas, gins, ...

distillery and was active in politics and society. After Moltzer's early education, she was trained as a nurse at the Burgerziekenhuis on Linnaeusstraat. She also attended lectures in Law and Literature at the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

in Switzerland.

Career

After her studies in 1905, Moltzer began working as head nurse in the ''Lebendige Kraft'' (Living Power)

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often in a health ...

in Zürich. There, she brought a holistic approach (a healthy mind in a healthy body). Moltzer took her specializations further: in the psychological causes of physical problems, in children with eating disorders, and from 1911 she had a private clinical practice where she treated many artists. At the beginning of 1910, Moltzer met

, when he was in his early collaboration with

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 ...

. Moltzer became Jung's assistant, and soon took over patients from him. During the 1913 break with Freud, she continued supporting Jung. In or around 1911, she described her understanding of intuition as "grown out of instinct. I consider intuition to be the differentiation and conscious function of instinct." In ''The Aftermath'', Ernst Falzeder discusses

Sonu Shamdasani Sonu Shamdasani (born 1962) is a London-based author, editor in chief, and professor at University College London. His research and writings focus on Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) and cover the history of psychiatry and psychology from the mid-n ...

's research, identifying Jung's final casting of ''intuition'' as both overlapping but also a significant re-working of Moltzer's original related framework.The Question of Psychological Types: The Correspondence between C. G. Jung and Hans Schmid-Guisan, 1915-1916, p30 In 1918, she broke with Jung, after finding her contributions not sufficiently recognized and credited. Later, Moltzer wrote "Am Umbruch der Zeit," later published as "Der Weg zur Mitte." Moltzer died after a long illness in Zurich.

Posthumous papers

More of her work has been recognized and published by Shamdasani in his 1998 work ''The Lost Contributions of Maria Moltzer: Two Unknown Papers''. In a review, a scholarly investigation has been discussed, undertaken by Shamdasani to identify characteristics of Moltzer's thought and writing as distinctly different to Jung. This investigation was on a document created from an early lecture by Jung, the content which has been used in 1990s and since, to prop-up a maligned contemporary view and create new controversy.

Publications

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moltzer, Maria Dutch women psychologists Dutch psychoanalysts Jungian psychologists 1874 births 1944 deaths Dutch emigrants to Switzerland