Else Pappenheim (born May 22, 1911 in

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

; died January 11, 2009 in New York) was an American

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

and

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

of Austrian origin. __TOC__

Life

Else Pappenheim came from a traditional Jewish family of doctors. Her mother Edith Goldschmidt (1883–1942) - a granddaughter of the founder of the first female high school in Leipzig, Henriette Goldschmidt - could not escape the persecution of Jews and committed suicide with her sister in 1942. Her father Martin Pappenheim (1881-1943) was head of the neurological department at Lainz Hospital, who emigrated to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

in 1934 as an opponent of

Austrofascism The Fatherland Front ( de-AT, Vaterländische Front, ''VF'') was the right-wing conservative, nationalist and corporatist ruling political organisation of the Federal State of Austria. It claimed to be a nonpartisan movement, and aimed to unite ...

. Her aunt was Marie ''(Mitzi)'' Pappenheim, who was one of the first women to receive her doctorate from the medical school in Vienna; under her married name Marie Frischauf, she ran sex advice centers for the poor in Vienna together with

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( , ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author ...

, before emigrating in 1934. Else Pappenheim grew up in Vienna, where she attended Eugenie Schwarzwald's reform school before beginning her studies in medicine. In 1937, Pappenheim was one of the last analysts to be trained at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. Until March 1938, Pappenheim worked at the University Hospital Vienna as a secondary doctor for neurology and psychiatry. After the ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

'', the Psychoanalytical Institute was closed and its members were forced to flee. Pappenheim emigrated to the United States via Palestine, where she met American psychoanalysis at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with one of the leading US psychiatrists, Adolf Meyer, whose analytical level, however, she found "primitive". In the United States, Else Pappenheim married Stephen Frischauf in 1946, who had also emigrated from Austria. The family later lived in New York, where the now Else Frishauf worked as a freelance psychoanalyst and held professorships at various universities. In 1956 Pappenheim visited Austria again for the first time since her flight. However, it was not until 1987, as part of the "Expelled Reason" symposium, in which she took part along with many other emigrants, that there was a certain rapprochement with Austria in the form of an exchange with young Austrian psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Else Pappenheim died in New York at the age of 97. She was the last living member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association from before 1938 and one of the last witnesses who could provide information about the end and re-establishment of psychoanalysis.

Writings

* Else Pappenheim: "Contemporary Witness", in: Friedrich Stadler d. ''International Symposium, October 19 to 23, 1987 in Vienna: Emigration and Exile of Austrian Science'' , Vienna: Youth and People, 1987 , p 221–229 (autobiographical)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pappenheim, Else 1911 births 2009 deaths Austrian neurologists Women neurologists Austrian psychoanalysts Physicians from Salzburg Austrian psychiatrists Jewish psychiatrists Austrian women psychiatrists Jewish women scientists Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss