Franz Alexander
Encyclopedia
Franz Gabriel Alexander (22 January 1891 – 8 March 1964) was a Hungarian-American
psychoanalyst
and physician
, who is considered one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalytic criminology
.
in 1891 and studied in Berlin. There he was part of an influential group of German analysts mentored by Karl Abraham
, including Karen Horney
and Helene Deutsch
, and gathered around the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
. 'In the early 1920s, Oliver Freud was in analysis with Franz Alexander' there - Sigmund Freud
's son - while 'Charles Odier, one of the first among French psychoanalysts, was analysed in Berlin by Franz Alexander' as well.
In 1930 he was invited by Robert Hutchins
, then President
of the University of Chicago
, to become its Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis. Alexander worked there at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
, where Paul Rosenfels
was one of his students. End 1950s he was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research
.
Franz Alexander died in Palm Springs, California
in 1964.
'Alexander in his "vector analysis"...measur[ed] the relative participation of the three basic directions in which an organism's tendencies towards the external world may be effective: reception, elimination, and retention'. In this he may have been a forerunner to Erik H. Erikson's later exploration of 'Zones, Modes, and Modalities'.
He also explored the 'morality demanded by the archaic superego...an automatized pseudo morality, characterized by Alexander as the corruptibility of the superego'.
Notable too was his exploration of acting out in real life, 'in which the patient's entire life consists of actions not adapted to reality but rather aimed at relieving unconscious tensions. It was this type of neurosis that was first described by Alexander under the name of neurotic character'.
who was, at the time, researching the possibility of treating physical disorders through psychological processes.
Together with Freud and Sándor Ferenczi
, Alexander developed the concept of autoplastic adaptation
. They proposed that when an individual was presented with a stressful situation, he could react in one of two ways:
From the 1930s through the 1950s, numerous analysts were engaged with the question of how to shorten the course of therapy but still achieve therapeutic effectiveness. These included Alexander, Ferenczi, Peter Sifneos, David Malan
, and Habib Davanloo. One of the first discoveries was that the patients who tended to benefit the most greatly from therapy were those who could rapidly engage, could describe a specific therapeutic focus, and could quickly move to an experience of their previously warded-off feelings. These also happened to represent those patients who were the healthiest to begin with and therefore had the least need for the therapy being offered. Clinical research revealed that these patients were able to benefit because they were the least resistant. They were the least resistant because they were the least traumatised and therefore had the smallest burden of repressed emotion. However, among the patients coming to the clinic for various problems, the rapid responders represented only a small minority. What could be offered to those who represented the vast bulk of patients coming for treatment? See further Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy
.
Alexander stated:
The concept provoked much controversy, provoking opposition from figures as disparate as Kurt Eissler, Edward Glover
, and Jacques Lacan
, who later said 'I did not hesitate to attack it myself in the most categorical way...at the 1950 Congress of Psychiatry, but, it is the construction of a man of great talent'.
By the sixties, Alexander's conception was in retreat, and at the close of the following decade an analyst could ask rhetorically 'Who talks about Franz Alexander today - except those who want to put down his "corrective emotional experience" or to deny, as the Kohutians are at constant pains to do, that they are offering more of the same?'. Ongoing developments in object relations theory
and the rise of self psychology
would however lead to a revival of interest in the idea.
It was championed again 'by Moberly (1985). In the latter's view, corrective emotional experience represents essentially what is therapeutic in analysis'. Even those with continuing reservations about the idea conceded that 'when Alexander was writing...it was pertinent for him to be drawing attention to the therapeutic value of the emotional experience of patients in analysis'.
In the twenty-first century, the term has passed into commom psychodynamic parlance. Thus notions of testing the relationship in cognitive therapy are seen as 'not dissimilar to the notion of the "corrective emotional experience" in psychodynamic therapy'; elucidation in existential therapy as opening up 'new experiences with the therapist, thus providing a corrective interpersonal experience'.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychoanalyst
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, who is considered one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalytic criminology
Criminology
Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...
.
Life
Franz Gabriel Alexander, in Hungarian Alexander Ferenc Gábor, was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
in 1891 and studied in Berlin. There he was part of an influential group of German analysts mentored by Karl Abraham
Karl Abraham
-Further reading:* Freud, S. . Mourning and Melancholia. Standard Edition, 14, 305-307.* May-Tolzmann, U. . The Discovery of the Bad Mother: Abraham’s contribution to the theory of Depression...
, including Karen Horney
Karen Horney
Karen Horney born Danielsen was a German-American psychoanalyst. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly his theory of sexuality, as well as the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis and its genetic psychology...
and Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch was an Austrian-American psychoanalyst and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She was the first psychoanalyst to specialize in women.- Life :...
, and gathered around the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
The Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute was founded in 1920 to further the science of psychoanalysis in Berlin. Its founding members included Karl Abraham and Max Eitingon. The scientists at the institute furthered Sigmund Freud's work but also challenged many of his ideas.-History:During the 1920s,...
. 'In the early 1920s, Oliver Freud was in analysis with Franz Alexander' there - Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
's son - while 'Charles Odier, one of the first among French psychoanalysts, was analysed in Berlin by Franz Alexander' as well.
In 1930 he was invited by Robert Hutchins
Robert Hutchins
Robert Maynard Hutchins , was an educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School , and president and chancellor of the University of Chicago. He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins...
, then President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, to become its Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis. Alexander worked there at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis is a center for psychoanalytic research, training, and education that is located on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. The institute provides professional training in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy...
, where Paul Rosenfels
Paul Rosenfels
Paul Rosenfels, M.D. , was one of the first American social scientists to defend homosexuality in print as a valid lifestyle...
was one of his students. End 1950s he was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research
Society for General Systems Research
The Society for General Systems Research is predecessor of the current International Society for the Systems Sciences , known to be one the first interdisciplinary and international co-operations in the field of systems theory and systems science...
.
Franz Alexander died in Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
in 1964.
Early writings 1923-1943
Alexander was a prolific writer. Between 'The Castration Complex in the Formation of Character [1923]...[&] Fundamental Concepts of Psychosomatic Research [1943]' he published nearly twenty other articles, contributing on a wide variety of subjects to the work of the "second psychoanalytic generation".'Alexander in his "vector analysis"...measur[ed] the relative participation of the three basic directions in which an organism's tendencies towards the external world may be effective: reception, elimination, and retention'. In this he may have been a forerunner to Erik H. Erikson's later exploration of 'Zones, Modes, and Modalities'.
He also explored the 'morality demanded by the archaic superego...an automatized pseudo morality, characterized by Alexander as the corruptibility of the superego'.
Notable too was his exploration of acting out in real life, 'in which the patient's entire life consists of actions not adapted to reality but rather aimed at relieving unconscious tensions. It was this type of neurosis that was first described by Alexander under the name of neurotic character'.
Psychosomatic work and short-term psychotherapy
Franz Alexander led the movement looking for the dynamic interrelation between mind and body. Sigmund Freud pursued a deep interest in psychosomatic illnesses following his correspondence with Georg GroddeckGeorg Groddeck
Georg Groddeck was a physician and writer regarded as a pioneer of psychosomatic medicine.-Method:...
who was, at the time, researching the possibility of treating physical disorders through psychological processes.
Together with Freud and Sándor Ferenczi
Sándor Ferenczi
Sándor Ferenczi was a Hungarian psychoanalyst, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud.-Biography:...
, Alexander developed the concept of autoplastic adaptation
Autoplastic adaptation
Autoplastic adaptation is a form of adaptation where the subject attempts to change itself when faced with a difficult situation....
. They proposed that when an individual was presented with a stressful situation, he could react in one of two ways:
- Autoplastic adaptation: The subject tries to change himself, i.e. the internal environment.
- Alloplastic adaptationAlloplastic adaptationAlloplastic adaptation is a form of adaptation where the subject attempts to change the environment when faced with a difficult situation. Criminality, mental illness, and activism can all be classified as categories of alloplastic adaptation.The concept of alloplastic adaptation was developed by...
: The subject tries to change the situation, i.e. the external environment.
From the 1930s through the 1950s, numerous analysts were engaged with the question of how to shorten the course of therapy but still achieve therapeutic effectiveness. These included Alexander, Ferenczi, Peter Sifneos, David Malan
David Malan
David Malan was a British psychotherapist.-Biography:Malan was the son of an English father in the Indian Civil Service and an American mother. He spent the first eight years of his life in India. His father then died from pneumonia, and he moved to England and boarding school...
, and Habib Davanloo. One of the first discoveries was that the patients who tended to benefit the most greatly from therapy were those who could rapidly engage, could describe a specific therapeutic focus, and could quickly move to an experience of their previously warded-off feelings. These also happened to represent those patients who were the healthiest to begin with and therefore had the least need for the therapy being offered. Clinical research revealed that these patients were able to benefit because they were the least resistant. They were the least resistant because they were the least traumatised and therefore had the smallest burden of repressed emotion. However, among the patients coming to the clinic for various problems, the rapid responders represented only a small minority. What could be offered to those who represented the vast bulk of patients coming for treatment? See further Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy
Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy
Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy is a form of short-term psychotherapy developed through empirical, video-recorded research by Habib Davanloo, MD...
.
The corrective emotional experience
'In the forties...Franz Alexander, following the lead of Sandor Ferenczi, proposed...the form of a "corrective emotional experience", which enjoyed an enormous vogue'.Alexander stated:
The concept provoked much controversy, provoking opposition from figures as disparate as Kurt Eissler, Edward Glover
Edward Glover (psychoanalyst)
Edward George Glover was a British psychoanalyst. He first studied medicine and surgery, and it was his elder brother, James Glover who attracted him towards psychoanalysis...
, and Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
, who later said 'I did not hesitate to attack it myself in the most categorical way...at the 1950 Congress of Psychiatry, but, it is the construction of a man of great talent'.
By the sixties, Alexander's conception was in retreat, and at the close of the following decade an analyst could ask rhetorically 'Who talks about Franz Alexander today - except those who want to put down his "corrective emotional experience" or to deny, as the Kohutians are at constant pains to do, that they are offering more of the same?'. Ongoing developments in object relations theory
Object relations theory
Object relations theory is a psychodynamic theory within psychoanalytic psychology. The theory describes the process of developing a mind as one grows in relation to others in the environment....
and the rise of self psychology
Self psychology
Self Psychology is a school of psychoanalytic theory and therapy created by Heinz Kohut and developed in the United States at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. Self psychology explains psychopathology as being the result of disrupted or unmet developmental needs...
would however lead to a revival of interest in the idea.
It was championed again 'by Moberly (1985). In the latter's view, corrective emotional experience represents essentially what is therapeutic in analysis'. Even those with continuing reservations about the idea conceded that 'when Alexander was writing...it was pertinent for him to be drawing attention to the therapeutic value of the emotional experience of patients in analysis'.
In the twenty-first century, the term has passed into commom psychodynamic parlance. Thus notions of testing the relationship in cognitive therapy are seen as 'not dissimilar to the notion of the "corrective emotional experience" in psychodynamic therapy'; elucidation in existential therapy as opening up 'new experiences with the therapist, thus providing a corrective interpersonal experience'.
Publications
- 1931, The Criminal, the judge and the public: A psychological analysis. (Together with Hugo Staub. Orig. ed. transl. by Gregory Zilboorg).
- 1960, The Western mind in transition : an eyewitness story. New York: Random House.
- 1961, The Scope of psychoanalysis 1921 - 1961: selected papers. 2. pr. New York: Basic Books.
- 1966, Psychoanalytic Pioneers. New York; London: Basic Books.
- 1968, The history of psychiatry; An evaluation of psychiatric thought and practice from prehistoric times to the present (co-author Sheldon T. Selesnick). New York [etc.]: New American Libr.
- 1969 [c1935] (with William Healy) Roots of crime: psychoanalytic studies, Montclair NJ: Patterson Smith.
- 1980, Psychoanalytic therapy. Principles and application. Franz Alexander and Thomas Morton French.
- 1984, The medical value of psychoanalysis. New York: Internat. Universities Pr., 1984. ISBN 0-8236-3285-7.
- 1987, Psychosomatic Medicine: Its Principles and Applications. 2nd. ed., New York; London: Norton. ISBN 0-393-70036-4.
Further reading
- E. R. Moberly, The Psychology of Self and Other (London 1985)
- Kurt Eissler: The Chigaco Institute of Psychoanalysis and the sixth period of the development of psychoanalytic technique (1950) (a critical comment to the Alexander's 1946 essay on "The corrective emotional experience")- PSYCHOMEDIA Telematic Review
External links
- http://www.mek.iif.hu/porta/szint/egyeb/lexikon/eletrajz/html/ABC00003/00174.htm
- The corrective emotional experience (1946) (chapters 2, 4, and 17 of the book by Franz Alexander, Thomas M. French et al., Psychoanalytic Therapy: Principles and Application. New York: Ronald Press, 1946) Franz Alexander