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The history of the Sigmund Freud Institute (SFI) in Frankfurt a.M. is closely linked to the persecution of psychoanalysis as a “Jewish science” during the time of National Socialism. The State of Hesse founded the SFI in 1960 as a gesture of reparation and to help bring psychoanalysis back to Germany. Alexander Mitscherlich, the first director, his wife Margarete Mitscherlich and the staff at the SFI made significant efforts to approach the darkest chapter of German history in public programs. Their book, The Inability to Mourn, shaped an entire generation of German psychoanalysts.
However, times change. One year after Rolf Haubl and I became directors of the SFI in 2003, the Institute was scheduled to be closed. With great effort, our team managed to lead the SFI out of the crisis by repositioning the SFI in today’s global world of scientific research on one hand while retaining the specific traditions of a psychoanalytic institution on the other.
In order to strengthen the SFI as a state-funded research institute, it was essential to move psychoanalytic knowledge out of the psychoanalytic ivory tower and make it available to the community in a visible and convincing way. We achieved this for instance by initiating large-scale psychoanalytic research projects on early prevention performed in close cooperation with the Anna Freud Institute. Early intervention programs were offered to traumatized children and families who lived on the fringes of town. Leading international psychoanalysts, Robert N. Emde, Henri Parens and Dieter Bürgin supported us to reach about 3000 such families between 2002 and 2016, among them many migrants and refugees. Within the framework of a large interdisciplinary Center, research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education (IDeA-Center), we were able to empirically demonstrate several positive outcomes in our psychoanalytic prevention projects.
This research data persuaded representatives of the State of Hesse that psychoanalysis brings