Imre Hermann (1889–1984)

Imre Hermann, the grand old man of the Hungarian psychoanalytic movement, died last year on 22 February. Beside Sandor Ferenczi and Michael Balint he was the chief representative of the so called 'Budapest School of Psychoanalysis'. His main achievement was to ensure that psychoanalysis preserved its continuity in Hungary.

Hermann was a member of the IPA from 1919. His quiet and modest personality showed strength and courage which enabled him to persist in his views during great historical changes. He built his oeuvre unhesitatingly, helped by his wife, Alice Hermann-Cziner—herself an analyst. She stood beside him for more than 50 years as a friend and collaborator; they wrote a number of publications jointly.

Hermann graduated from the Medical School of Budapest University and began as a specialist in mental disorders. In his university years he had already taken an interest in psychology. He was a student of Géza Révész, who was later to achieve world fame as a master of experimental psychology and skill assessment. Around this time Hermann attended one of Sándor Ferenczi's lectures on psychoanalysis. He soon became a passionate follower of the new science and a student of Ferenczi. He was accompanied throughout his activity, by the spirit of impartial scientific research.

Hermann perpetually extended the scope of psychoanalysis to include newer fields. His first major works approach the psychology of thinking from the analytical angle: Psychoanalyse und Logik (1924); Das Ich und das Denken (1929). In a series of experiments, published in 1921, he examined the formal laws of choice. He came to the conclusion that when a choice is to be made from a series of uniform elements, e.g. coins, matches, a tendency to marginal choice first prevails and it is around the age of 6 that the tendency of medium choice, characteristic of adults, appears. In regressive conditions, in dreams, in certain psychoses, etc. the tendency to marginal choice returns. A philoso