Karl Abraham

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Karl Abraham (May 3, 1877 - December 25, 1925) was an early German psychoanalyst, and a student and colleague of Sigmund Freud. He made substantial contributions to the world of psychoanalysis. He showed interest in the various stages of psychosexual development, which was worked out by Freud. Freud called Karl Abraham as his 'best pupil'[1] and eventually became his close friend and confidante. Karl Abraham founded the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, and he was the president of the International Psychoanalytical Association from 1914 to 1918 and again in 1925. His contributions helped open the doors for modern psychoanalysis in the United States and Britain.

Life

Karl Abraham was born in Bremen into a well-to-do, highly cultured, and well established Jewish family in 1877. Karl's father used to be a teacher of Hebrew religion, but he gave up being a teacher for economic reasons. Because of that situation, Karl abandoned the Jewish faith early. His writings also reflect no interest in religion, this being in marked contrast to his friend and mentor, Sigmund Freud. Thereafter, Karl Abraham became deeply interested in philology and linguistics, and he learned to speak five languages, read several others, and even analyzed and psychoanalyzed some patients in English. Following the standard German preparatory education, Karl Abraham received his medical degree from the University of Freiburg in 1901.

Karl Abraham's first position was at Burgholzi Mental Hospital in Zurich. He became an assistant to Eugene Bleuler and studied with Carl Gustav Jung, who in 1907 introduced him to Sigmund Freud. In that same year, Karl Abraham published his first paper, which began with the phrase "according to Freud." It was a prophetic beginning. Karl Abraham among all Freud's disciples, never deviated from personal loyalty to Freud or from the classical principles of psychoanalysis.

Karl Abraham was soon alienated by Carl Jung's personality and by what he saw as Jung's threats to the scientific status of psychoanalysis. Despite Freud's pleadings the two men were never reconciled, and Karl Abraham soon left Zurich to establish a practice in Berlin. This practice flourished, and among his analysands (i. e., psychoanalysed persons) were several who became respected analysts (i. e., psychoanalysts}, including Sandor Rado and Helen Deutsch. During 1924-1925, Karl Abraham was the analyst of Melanie Klein and of a number of other British psychoanalysts, including Alix Strachey, Edward Glover and James Glover. In future, Edward Glover and James Glover became American physicians. Karl Abraham was also a mentor for an influential group of German psychoanalysts, including Karen Horney and Franz Alexander. Thus, Karl Abraham brought to the fledgling psychoanalytic movement considerable prestige, and his contributions have lasted far beyond his own brief life.

Work

According to verified sources, Karl Abraham's total literary output was about 700 pages, consisting of four short books and forty-nine papers, all but eight of which dealt with the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, Karl Abraham made important contributions to the psychology of sexuality, character development, psychological understanding of myths, psychoanalytical interpretation of dreams, symbolism, and folk psychology. His most important theoretical contribution to the field of Psychiatry was his delineation of the etiology and dynamics of bipolar disorder. Karl Abraham collaborated with Sigmund Freud on the understanding of manic-depressive illness, leading to Freud's paper on Mourning and Melancholia in 1917.

Legacy

Karl Abraham is mainly remembered for two things—that he is a pioneer of German Psychoanalysis and that he founded the Berlin Society of Psychoanalysis, in 1908.

One of Karl Abraham's key ideas is expressed in his description of psychological defense, "A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work." This idea has become aphorismic in psychoanalytical understanding of ego defense.

For the last 30 years of his life, Sigmund Freud was in search of inheritors, younger, talented, and energetic persons—preferably men—who could devote themselves to him and to psychoanalysis and carry on his psychoanalytic legacy. So Freud began to gather round him talented younger thinkers like Karl Abraham, Sandor Ferenczi, and Carl Jung. He seated them at a table with himself at the head, like a monarch surrounded by his knights. In time Freud gave some of them rings to seal the fellowship. He called them his sons. Over time, though, it became clear that Freud could not bear much of any intellectual disagreement from his followers. Many years later, when Freud was asked who was his best pupil, he promptly replied Karl Abraham.

In his work Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) Sigmund Freud wrote: "The communal life of human beings had, therefore, a two-fold foundation: the compulsion to work, which was created by external necessity, and the power of love... ." (S.E. XXI.101). In other words, it can be referred to Eros and Anank, i. e., Love and Necessity, which constitute the foundations of any society. This Freudian sentimental idea is appropriate to imply to Karl Abraham's life and work and legacy. Karl Abraham truly lived a life of loving and working. And also his life is a legacy for loving and for working.

Notes

  1. Frequently Asked Questions Freud Museum Retrieved August 21, 2007.

Publications

  • Abraham, Karl. Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis, Publisher: Karnac Books; 1997, ISBN 0-9501647-7-1
  • Abraham, Karl. 2006. Dreams And Myths: A Study In Race Psychology. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1428637740
  • Freud, Sigmund and Karl Abraham. 2002. The Complete Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham 1907-1925. Karnac Books. ISBN 978-1855750517

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling. Second Edition. Edited by David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill. 1999. Baker Books, MI.
  • Ben-David, J.and Collins, R. 1966. Social factors in the origin of a new science: The case of psychology. American Psychological Review, 31, 451-465.
  • Blumental, A.L. (1970). Language and Psychology: Historical aspects of psychlinguistics. New York: John Wiley.
  • Brennan, J.F. 1982. History and systems of psychology. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
  • Ferenczi, Sandor and Sigmund Freud. 1996. The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 2: 1914-1919. Eva Brabant and Ernst Falzeder (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674174194
  • Ferenczi, Sandor & Sigmund Freud. 2000. The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 3: 1920-1933. Eva Brabant and Ernst Falzeder (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674002970
  • Freud, S. Civilization and Its Discontents. In German, Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, 1930.
  • Horney, K. 1939. New ways in psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
  • Keve, T. 2000. Triad: the physicists, the analysts, the kabbalists. London: Rosenberger & Krausz. ISBN 0953621901
  • Koch, S. (1941). The logical character of the motivation concept. Psychological Review, 48, 15-38 and 127-154.
  • Leahey, Th. H. 1991. A History of Modern Psychology. Englewood Cliff, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
  • Paris, B. J. 1994. Karen Horney: a Psychoanalyst's Search for Self-understanding. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06860-3
  • Quinn, S. 1987. Mind of Her Own: the Life of Karen Horney. New York: Summit Books. ISBN 0-333-46393-5
  • Rubins, J. L. 1978. Karen Horney: Gentle Rebel of Psychoanalysis. New York: Summit Books.ISBN 0-8037-4425-0
  • From: John Dorsey. An American Psychiatrist in Vienna.) "I asked the Professor to name his 'best pupil' and he replied promptly, Karl Abraham."

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