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When I received the Division 39 award last year, I asked Dr. Stockhamer what kind of paper he expected me to present this year. He said, “Talk about your work. Give us a professional autobiography.” So that is what I did.
I grew up in a very orthodox and authoritarian German Jewish family and became a rebel against orthodoxy at the age of 15. At that age, for the first time I became aware of Freud's work. I literally “dis-covered” Freud's work at age 15: I was asked to dust every book in my parents' library, and hidden behind a row of other books I found a number of Freud's writings which my father, a physician, clearly did not want his children to see. That, of course, aroused my curiosity. Secretly, I read all I could find, and remained fascinated by psychoanalysis. I also have remained a rebel against orthodoxy ever since, fighting orthodoxy—even in psychoanalysis. I am deeply convinced that orthodoxy and conservatism lead to stagnation in science as well as in religion. I am proud to have pioneered in various ways in my profession, and I am happy to share my experiences with those of you who also are pioneers. And, I hope to encourage those with an adventurous spirit to go out and extend the frontiers of our profession. Pioneering is often lonesome and painful; but it is also deeply satisfying.
I am a Nazi refugee. The Nazis started to gain political influence when I was in high school, and had come to full power by the time I was 22 years old. My dissertation—done under Max Wertheimer, the father of Gestalt theory—was nearly finished, and I still was able to finish it during that year and get my Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt. Four weeks later I fled to Holland, where I got a research assistantship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Amsterdam.
At that time, all psychology departments in psychiatric clinics in Holland were run by psychiatrists, and no mental hospital had psychologists. After 1 1/2 years, I tried to convince the director of