Gustav Bally 1893-1966

With the death of Professor Gustav Bally, on November 29, 1966, the world has lost a man who dedicated his life toward bringing psychlogical “freedom and order” into the lives of his fellow men.

Born of Swiss parents in Mannheim, Germany, December 4, 1893, he was educated both in Germany and Switzerland. Graduated in medicine from the University of Zurich, he had psychiatric training at Burghölzli Hospital, Zurich, and at the Sanatorium Muncingen, in Bern. During his training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, begun in 1924, among his teachers were Hanns Sachs and Karen Horney. In Berlin he began his lifelong friendships with Franz Alexander, Erich Fromm and Edith Weigert. In 1932 he returned to Zurich to practice psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

“In the early thirties,” said F. Meerwein in his eulogy, Dr. Bally “stated his position clearly, incisively, courageously and successfully… against the ‘leveling’ policy of the Nationalist Socialists in Germany, which policy for a time also threatened to befog Swiss psychotherapy.”

In 1940 Dr. Bally began to give courses at the University of Zurich, in time becoming Professor of psychotherapy there. From 1947 to 1956 he was Professor Extraordinary for Philosophy, Psychology and Pedagogy, at the University in St. Gall.

With Manfred Bleuler and Medard Boss, he founded in 1948, the Zurich Institute for Medical Psychotherapy. Up to his death, he actively participated in this Institute and the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society. The Swiss Psychiatric Association honored him with the presidency for the years 1956-58.

He was a lifelong student of Freudian theory and method. At a time when many either made rigid laws of Freud's theories or rejected them totally, Bally “tried to recomprehend Freud, to think beyond him and to newly understand him on the basis of modern scientific discoveries, expecially of sociological experiences.” The culmination of these endeavors was his Introduction to the Psychanalysis of Sigmund Freud.

Bally designated