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(Prof. Kernberg (K) is interviewed by Drs Lamnidis (L) & Vartzopoulos (V), with the assistance of Drs Hadji (H), Christopoulos (C) & Mylona (M), in Delphi, 24/10/2008).
L: Dr Kernberg, do you remember any moment in your life where your contact with psychoanalytic ideas contributed in a critical way to your decision to become a psychoanalyst?
K: Well, my first contact with psycho-analytic ideas was during the time of my immigration from Vienna, Austria to Valparaiso, Chile. I was about 11 years old when I got to Chile. I lived with a group of German and Austrian Jewish immigrants and one of them was an Adlerian psychologist, Mrs. Wittenberg. This lady gave me to read works of Alfred Adler, at age of 12. There was also a youth group that I formed, when I was 13. It was a group with other German speaking Jews youngsters, just about 12 or 13 years old, in Valparaiso. We invited an older gentleman, he was about 40, his name was Hans Aufrichtig… which means… honest, and he had been analyzed by a Jungian analyst in Germany and talked to us about Jung and Freud. So, I started reading Jung… and then Freud, systematically, at the age of 15-16 and I was very interested in that. But this was just part of general reading, I did not think about it further. But I wanted to become a physician, as an uncle of mine was a very distinguished psychiatrist, Manfred Sackel, who discovered insulin coma treatment for schizophrenia.
L: He was your uncle! He was from your mother's side?