The Berlin Poliklinik: Psychoanalytic Innovation in Weimar Germany

Abstract

After Freud proposed in 1918 the creation of "institutions or out-patient clinics [where] treatment will be free," Max Eitingon, Ernst Simmel, and other progressive psychoanalysts founded the Berlin Poliklinik, a free outpatient clinic. Guided by Weimar Republic principles of "radical functionalism," the Poliklinik and its companion inpatient service, the Schloss Tegel Sanatorium, pioneered treatment and training methodologies still used--and still debated--today. Their funding strategies, statistics, and approaches to clinical problems like length of treatment tell the history of an innovative psychoanalytic institute where men and women were generally treated in equal numbers and patients (ranging in occupational status from unemployed to professional) of all ages were treated free. Franz Alexander, Karl Abraham, Theresa Benedek, Paul Federn, Otto Fenichel, Edith Jacobson, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Helene Deutsch, Hanns Sachs, Sándor Radó, Hermine von Hug-Hellmuth, Wilhelm Reich, Annie Reich, and Melanie Klein all worked at the Poliklinik, and from there initiated decades of original clinical theory, practice, and education.

Women neuropsychiatrists on Wagner-Jauregg’s staff in Vienna at the time of the Nobel award: ordeal and fortitude

“…In 1930, Annie and Wilhelm Reich, and their two daughters Eva and Lore, moved to Berlin (Danto, 1999: 1286). Two years later the couple separated.…”

Por uma história das políticas da psicanálise: institucionalização, formação e posicionamento político dos analistas

“…If the involvement of psychoanalytical ideas with the problems faced by European society at the beginning of the century was not insignificant 4 ; then after the war, the institutionalization of the psychoanalytical movement, with a new generation of analysts, pushed this flirtation towards politics. Now this process had another address: the free clinics of Berlin (Danto, 1999) -which, little by little, transformed themselves into the center of psychoanalysis, with the application of the standard model for psychoanalytical formation until the rise of Nazism -and of Vienna, which had as its first clinical assistant (1922)(1923)(1924)(1925)(1926)(1927)(1928) and vice-director (1928-1930) Wilhelm Reich (Albertini, 2016) 5 . All this attention given to the neurotic masses was kept as a private initiative by some of the psychoanalysts themselves, since it was difficult to guarantee the budget for the Berlin Polyclinic and the Vienna Ambulatory without State help and with only a few paying patients.…”

The Beginnings of Psychoanalytic Supervision: The Crucial Role of Max Eitingon

“…Danto (1999) referred to the Poliklinik's many clinical innovations as "startling", its staff roster-which included Karen Horney, among many distinguished others-as reading like a psychoanalytic hall of fame. At the Poliklinik, Horney proved to be highly supportive of and helpful to Eitingon in many ways, and her contributions were significant and substantive.…”