You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The title of this book—in English, From Charlottenburg to Central Park West: Henry Lowenfeld and Psychoanalysis in Berlin, Prague, and New York—could be misleading if the reader expects a standard biography of the analyst Henry Lowenfeld. It is the belief of both the author, Thomas Müller, and of his subject that the life history of any
person is the product of the environmental conditions that favor some and inhibit other features of personality development.
This position requires, in this instance, a careful study of the Zeitgeist, the conditions of life in Berlin, especially at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, until 1933; of the Prague Psychoanalytic Study Group up to 1938; and, finally, of the period of Lowenfeld's membership in the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
Thus, this book gives us insight into the historical conditions of the life of a German Jew who, with so many others, became an analyst and was influenced by the political theories of his time. He was influenced particularly by Marxism, as formulated by Herbert Marcuse, and by Otto Fenichel, who with Edith Jacobson, Annie and Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, and George Gero created a Marxian psychoanalytic seminar in Central Europe in the early 1930s.
Given this background, it is not surprising that Henry Lowenfeld established a friendly relationship with Alexander Mitscherlich, or that he was critical of the Americanization of psychoanalysis. He had in mind, however, not the development of Hartmann's ego psychology but rather the stress on clinical pathology—oriented psychotherapy to the neglect of exploring the effect of social conditions on psychic life.
Müller's intention is to present a sociohistorically oriented biography; he does not claim to have written a psychobiography. He is interested in the history of psychoanalysis, primarily in order to understand its origin, development, and application. In his introduction, he refers to his wish to understand the difference between the German and the