Arthur Kronfelds Sexualtheorie und -therapie zwischen Psyche und Soma1

Zusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag ist Arthur Kronfelds sexualwissenschaftlicher und -therapeutischer Tätigkeit vor dem Hintergrund seiner Auseinandersetzung mit der Psychoanalyse gewidmet. Ausgangspunkt ist Kronfelds frühe Arbeit über sexuelle Anziehung, die in Rezeption seines verehrten Lehrers, dem Evolutionsbiologen Ernst Haeckel entstand, aber durch die sich daran anschließende Beschäftigung mit dem Neukantianismus und der psychoanalytischen Sexualtheorie noch vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg verworfen wurde. In seiner Funktion als psychiatrischer Leiter der Abteilung für seelische Sexualleiden an

Summary: Arthur Kronfeld's Sexual Theory and Sexual Therapy between Soma and Psyche. This contribution examines Arthur Kronfeld's activities as a sexologist and sexual-therapeutic clinician in the context of his engagement with psychoanalysis. It begins with Kronfeld's early work on sexual attraction, which he began under the influence of his beloved mentor and teacher, the evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel, and then rejected before the First World War, following his engagement with neo-Kantianism and psychoanalytic sexual theories. In his function as the psychiatric chief of the Department for Psychological Sexual Diseases in Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1926), Kronfeld synthesized elements from theories of psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud), psychiatric theories on correlation between physical constitution und personal characteristics (Ernst Kretschmer), and endocrinology (Eugen Steinach) to create an understanding of sexuality that he carried out in sexual-therapeutic interventions and disseminated in his teaching as a professor. Arthur Kronfeld personally underwent three psychoanalyses that successively changed his relationship to this technique: although he never entirely abandoned his scientific position, he subordinated his concerns to the experiences he gained in these analyses and declared himself a disciple.