Rudolph Maurice Loewenstein (January 17, 1898 – April 14, 1976) was an 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 ...
who practiced in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, and the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
Biography
Loewenstein was born in
Łódź
Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
(then in the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
), to a Jewish family from the province of
Galicia.
After graduating from his university studies in Zurich Switzerland from 1917 to 1920, he went to Berlin to study medicine where he received his medical diploma, specializing in neurology and studying under
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler ( ; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist most notable for his influence on modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", " schizoid", "a ...
. At this time he became acquainted with psychoanalysis where he was certified as a psychoanalyst after undergoing a training analysis with
Hanns Sachs. He became a member of the German Psychoanalytic Society. (DPG) in 1925.
At the request of
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 ...
, Loewenstein moved to Paris, France in 1927 in order to train new analysts. He was the second licensed psychoanalyst, after
Eugenie Sokolnicka, to practice there. He trained most of the first two generations of French analysts, including, notably,
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 ...
(between 1933 and 1939). He was a founding member and also secretary of the first French psychoanalytic society, the
Société psychanalytique de Paris (SPP). (Some of the other founding members included
René Laforgue,
Marie Bonaparte,
Raymond de Saussure, and
Angelo Hesnard.) In 1927, he participated in the creation of the SPP's journal, the ; and in 1928 he and Marie Bonaparte translated Freud's case-study of
Dora into French.
In 1930, he became a French citizen by decree and obtained his medical license anew - defending his thesis for a doctorate in medicine in 1935. In 1939, he was mobilized as a doctor in the French army receiving the Croix-de-Guerre in 1940. After the Armistice, he fled to the south of France, and in 1942 left there with his family for the United States, where he settled in New York. There he pursued a distinguished institutional career with the
International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), becoming its vice president from 1965 to 1967.
He died in 1976 in
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 ...
.
Loewenstein is known, along with
Ernst Kris and
Heinz Hartmann, as one of the foremost figures of what has been called
Ego psychology
Ego psychology is a school of psychoanalysis rooted in Sigmund Freud's structural id-ego-superego model of the mind.
An individual interacts with the external world as well as responds to internal forces. Many psychoanalysts use a theoretical c ...
.
[Janet Malcolm, ''Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession'' (1988) p. 4]
Family
He was married to Marie-Elisabeth Schmitt, with who he had two daughters, Dominique Therese and Elisabeth Charlotte. After her death he married Marquess Amalia Pallavicini, with who he had a daughter, Marie-Francoise. In 1947 he married a fellow psychoanalyst
Elisabeth Geleerd with whom he had a son, Richard Joseph.
Works
* ''Origine du masochisme et la théorie des pulsions'', 1938
* ''The vital or somatic drives'', 1940
* ''Psychanalyse de l'Antisemitisme'', 1952
* (ed. with
Heinz Hartmann and
Ernst Kris), ''Notes on the theory of aggressions'', 1949
See also
*
Daniel Lagache
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loewenstein, Rudolph
1898 births
1976 deaths
Polish psychologists
French psychoanalysts
Jewish psychoanalysts
American psychoanalysts
20th-century Polish Jews
History of psychiatry
Translators of Sigmund Freud
Analysands of Hanns Sachs
20th-century French psychologists
Polish emigrants to France
People from Łódź
20th-century American psychologists