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Report on the International Congress for Psychotherapeutics. Bernard Zuger, Hugh Mullan, Emy A. Metzger. September 23, 1951.
Reports on the International Congress for Psychotherapeutics, held in Leiden, Holland, Sept. 5-8, 1951, were given by Doctors Zuger, Mullan, and Metzger who attended the meeting and read papers. The Congress was international in scope and was attended by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists who seemed vitally interested in the exchange of experiences, methods, and theories. It was difficult to determine how truly representative of European psychology the Leiden Congress was because it had been preceded by a meeting with a more orthodox Freudian approach in Amsterdam. There was evidence at the Leiden meeting of considerable interest in Horney's work, at least among the Dutch psychiatrists. There was also evidence of the influence of Jung and Adler, and of those who utilized psychodrama in therapy.
Summaries of the papers presented by Drs. Zuger, Metzger and Mullan follow: Dr. Zuger: Growth of the individual's concept of self—Theory and Some Therapeutic Considerations. The essential contribution of dynamic psychiatry has been the attempt to understand the individual from his inner or motivational frame of reference. The development of this inner frame of reference may be said to go through three stages of development: 1) self-discovery, 2) self-possession, 3) self-direction. In stage 1 (“It is I”) the individual acquires a sense of existence as a “somebody.” This is dependent on early adequate qualitative and quantitative communication with other human beings. In stage 2 the individual in his first awareness of “I” must take possession of himself—take over his organic functioning. This is possible only when the individual's value of himself as reflected from the significant people about him is a positive one and allows active experiencing of himself and the world. (“I am such-and-such an I—do you like me?”) In stage 3 the individual, as a consequen