Hermann/Herman Nunberg (23 January 1884 - 20 May 1970) was a psychoanalyst and

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 ...

born in

Będzin Będzin (; also ''Bendzin'' in English; german: Bendzin; yi, בענדין, Bendin) is a city in the Dąbrowa Basin, in southern Poland. It lies in the Silesian Highlands, on the Czarna Przemsza River (a tributary of the Vistula). Even though pa ...

which was then part of the German Empire.

Training and life

Nunberg earned his medical degree in 1910 from the

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

, where he assisted

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

at the

Burghölzli The ''Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Zürich'' (Psychiatric University Hospital Zürich) is a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland. As a research hospital, it is associated with the University of Zürich. It is also called Burghölzli, after t ...

Psychiatric Clinic with word association tests. For a short time he practised

psychiatry Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a town with historic roots, a municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimate ...

and Bern, and in 1912 he taught classes at the university clinic in Krakow. In 1914 he became an assistant to Julius Wagner-Jauregg in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where for several years he taught classes on

neurology 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 ...

, and where in 1915 he joined the

Vienna Psychoanalytic Society The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (, WPV), formerly known as the Wednesday Psychological Society, is the oldest psychoanalysis society in the world. In 1908, reflecting its growing institutional status as the international psychoanalytic authority ...

. He remained in Vienna until 1932 when he emigrated to the United States and worked in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. While in New York he was a member of the

New York Psychoanalytic Society The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States. The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Fre ...

, of which he was president from 1950 until 1952.

Writings and work

*In 1932 copies of his lectures were published (translated in 1955 as a book titled "Principles of Psychoanalysis, Their Application to the Neuroses"); and in the preface of the 1932 publication, an impressed

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

wrote that it:

"contains the most complete and conscientious presentation of a psycho-analytic theory of the neurotic processes which we at present possess".

*Nunberg was an early advocate (1918) of required " training analysis" sessions for psychoanalysts in training. He also spoke up strongly in favor of

lay analysis A lay analysis is a psychoanalysis performed by someone who is not a physician; that person was designated a lay analyst. In '' The Question of Lay Analysis'' (1927), Sigmund Freud defended the right of those trained in psychoanalysis to practi ...

, suggesting that behind opposition to it stood non-theoretical motives “such as medical prestige and motives of an economic nature”. *

Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...

noted Nunberg as one of the few proponents for Freud’s

Death drive In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive (german: Todestrieb) is the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.Eric Berne, '' ...

. Jacques Lacan however considered that Nunberg revealed something of his own

grandiosity In the field of psychology, the term grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority, characterized by a sustained view of one's self as better than others, which is expressed by disdainfully criticising them (contempt), overinflating ...

in his meditations upon the relations between the life and the death forces. *Nunberg’s articles on ‘The Will to Recovery’ (1926) and ‘On the Theory of Therapeutic Results of Psychoanalysis’ (1937) reveal his interest in the curative aspects of analysis. Lacan singled out the former piece as showing (in humorous fashion) the inherent ambiguities in the neurotic’s search for cure: “to restore peace in his home...the patient admits to a desire, in the form of a temporary suspension of his presence at home, the opposite of what he came to propose as the first aim of his analysis”.J Lacan, ''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis'' (Penguin 1994) p. 138

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

Answers.com; Hermann Nunberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nunberg, Hermann 1884 births 1970 deaths Austrian psychiatrists Analysands of Paul Federn German expatriates in Switzerland German emigrants to Austria-Hungary Austrian emigrants to the United States

Training and life

Writings and work

See also

Bibliography

References

External links