Eugène Minkowski (; born Eugeniusz Minkowski; 17 April 1885 – 17 November 1972) was a French
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...
of Jewish Polish origin, known for his incorporation of
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...
into
psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness. It includes the signs and symptoms of all mental disorders. The field includes Abnormal psychology, abnormal cognition, maladaptive behavior, and experiences which differ according to social norms ...
and for exploring the notion of "lived time". A student of
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler ( ; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist most notable for his influence on modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", " schizoid", "a ...
, he was also associated with the work of
Ludwig Binswanger
Ludwig Binswanger (; ; 13 April 1881 – 5 February 1966) was a Swiss people, Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His parents were Robert Johann Binswanger (1850–1910) and Bertha Hasenclever (1847–1896). ...
and
Henri Ey. He was influenced by phenomenological philosophy and the vitalistic philosophy of
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...
, and by the phenomenologists
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology.
In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...
and
Max Scheler
Max Ferdinand Scheler (; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers,Davis, Zacha ...
; therefore his work departed from classical
medical
Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
and psychological models. He was a prolific author in several languages and regarded, as a great humanitarian. Minkowski accepted the phenomenological essence of schizophrenia as the "trouble générateur" ("generative disturbance"), which he thought consists in a loss of "vital contact with reality" and shows itself as
autism
Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...
.
Life and career
Minkowski was born in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
, the capital of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
, into a Jewish Polish family. He was second of the four sons of August Minkowski, a
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
banker and his wife, Tekla, née Lichtenbaum. When he was 7 years old, the family returned to the Polish capital, where he attended school and started his medical studies at the
Imperial University of Warsaw. However, because of political repression from the czarist government, the university was temporarily closed in 1905. He was obliged to continue his studies at
Breslau University (3 semesters), at
Göttingen University
Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
(2 semesters) and finally, at
Munich University (3 semesters) where he obtained his medical degree in 1909. As a Russian subject, he went on to practice medicine in
Kazan
Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...
to obtain Russian certification, and while there met his future wife,
Franciszka Brokman, also a doctor and later known as 'Françoise'. They married in 1913. The couple settled in Munich, where Françoise pursued further work in psychiatry while Eugène took up the study of mathematics and philosophy, attending lectures by
Alexander Pfänder and
Moritz Geiger, pupils of
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology.
In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...
. In Munich he became acquainted with
Germanic philosophy. The outbreak of World War I forced them to seek refuge in
Zürich
Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
with Minkowski's brother, Mieczysław (Michel). There, Minkowski and his wife both became assistants to
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler ( ; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist most notable for his influence on modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", " schizoid", "a ...
at the
Burghölzli, a university clinic where
Carl Gustav Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a ...
and
Ludwig Binswanger
Ludwig Binswanger (; ; 13 April 1881 – 5 February 1966) was a Swiss people, Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His parents were Robert Johann Binswanger (1850–1910) and Bertha Hasenclever (1847–1896). ...
had practised earlier. In 1914 he finished a work entitled ''"Les éléments essentiels du temps-qualité"'' – "The Essential Elements of Time-Quality". At the beginning of the
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
Minkowski volunteered in the
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (, , ), is the principal Army, land warfare force of France, and the largest component of the French Armed Forces; it is responsible to the Government of France, alongside the French Navy, Fren ...
in 1915 as a military medic. In 1915, the couple had a son,
Alexandre Minkowski, later a pioneer of French
neonatology
Neonatology is a subspecialty of pediatrics that consists of the medical care of newborn infants, especially the ill or premature newborn. It is a hospital-based specialty and is usually practised in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Th ...
and father of the noted orchestra conductor,
Marc Minkowski, followed in 1918 by a daughter, Jeannine, a lawyer. In the war he saw action at the
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme (; ), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 Nove ...
and the
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
, where his bravery earned him several citations and military decorations, including the
Croix de Guerre. He became an officer of the
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
and obtained French nationality. In France Minkowski came under the influence of the famous French philosopher
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...
, who critiqued standard scientific views of time and of life.
Minkowski was convinced that
psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness. It includes the signs and symptoms of all mental disorders. The field includes Abnormal psychology, abnormal cognition, maladaptive behavior, and experiences which differ according to social norms ...
should be closer to
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and closer to individual philosophers' views.
For Minkowski, Bergson was the paradigmatic philosopher.
After the war he said:
"During the war we were waiting for peace, hoping to take up again the life that we had abandoned. In reality, a new period began, a period of difficulties and disappointments, of setbacks and painful, often fruitless efforts to adapt oneself to new problems of existence. The calm propitious to philosophic thought was far from reborn. Long, arid, and somber years followed the war. My work lay dormant at the bottom of my drawer".
After World War I, when his enlistment came to an end, he adopted French nationality. The family moved again to Paris permanently and Minkowski returned to
medicine
Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
and partially abandoned his philosophical pursuits. He worked on the
perception of time as a vector in psychopathology, drawing heavily on his unpublished work on
Bergson, whom he had known personally. In 1925 he became one of the co-founders of a movement and a French journal in psychiatry, known as ''"L'Évolution psychiatrique"'' – "Psychiatric Evolution". ''"L'Évolution psychiatrique"'', which introduced the work of
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler ( ; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist most notable for his influence on modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", " schizoid", "a ...
and several other psychiatrists, such as
Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (; ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 work ''General Psychopathology'' influenced many ...
and
Ludwig Binswanger
Ludwig Binswanger (; ; 13 April 1881 – 5 February 1966) was a Swiss people, Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His parents were Robert Johann Binswanger (1850–1910) and Bertha Hasenclever (1847–1896). ...
. Directors of ''"l'Ėvolution psychiatrique"'' were
A. Hesnard and
R. Laforgue.
Original works and critical studies in the journal have been made by messieurs
R. Allendy,
A. Borel,
A. Ceillier,
H. Claude,
H. Codet,
J. Damourette,
A. Hesnard,
R. Laforgue, M
me F. Minkowska, E. Minkowski,
É Pichon,
Robin,
R. de Saussure,
Schiff and
J. Vinchon.
In 1925 Minkowski contributed articles to the first volume of ''"L'Ėvolution psychiatrique" '': "La Génèse de la Notion de Schizophrénie et ses Caractères Essentiels" – "Genesis of the Notion of Schizophrenia and its Essential Features". As a bonus he published a page about the modern
history of psychiatry.
In 1926 he wrote a doctoral thesis on ""La notion de perte de contact avec la réalité et ses applications en psychopathologie"" – ''The Notion of Loss of Contact with Reality and its Applications in Psychopathology'', which was based on the works of
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the S ...
and
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler ( ; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist most notable for his influence on modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", " schizoid", "a ...
, and began work at Sainte-Anne's Psychiatric Hospital, a leading mental hospital in Paris. Minkowski thought that autism is the patient's loss of vital contact with reality (''perte de contact vital avec la réalité''). He distinguished two types of schizophrenic autism: 'rich or florid autism' (''autisme riche'') & 'poor autism' (''autisme pauvre''), i.e. autism characterized by affective and cognitive "poverty".
But Minkowski disagreed with Bleuler on several points. First, he did not believe that the necessary component of autism is "the predominance of inner
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...
life". In truth, he claimed that a typical schizophrenic patient has the "poor autism", which he characterized by the poverty of affective and cognitive processes. On that subject, he also criticized Bleuler's description of schizophrenic autism together with
Emil Kraepelin. Minkowski claimed that "rich autism" happened only when a schizophrenic patient was equipped with an autism-independent inclination toward affective and cognitive expressivity. Just as important, Minkowski considered autism as a both fundamental and primary disorder of schizophrenia. Other psychopathological features of schizophrenia could be comprehended in terms of it.
In 1927 he published ''"La Schizophrénie"'' on schizophrenia, followed in 1933, by ''"Le Temps vécu. Études phénoménologique et psychopathologiques"'' – "Lived Time. Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies". In this, his only book so far translated into English, Minkowski sought to use phenomenology as an approach to psychopathology. He proposed that the pathology of patients should always be interpreted in light of their subjective experience of time. Unable initially to find a publisher he funded a thousand copies himself. It was eventually published by J.L.L. d'Artrey to whom Minkowski dedicated the new edition of the work.
Minkowski was in the
Resistance during World War II
During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, r ...
and directed the work of a charity to protect children from the
Shoah that saved thousands of Jewish children. In 1946 he gave one of the first Basel lectures on psychological suffering during Nazi persecution and went on to testify as an expert witness in numerous subsequent lawsuits. He was the author of some 250 clinical papers and publications. Eugène Minkowski died in 1972. His funeral was attended by a large crowd, including his psychiatrist friend and collaborator,
Henri Ey.
Philosophy and psychopathology
Philosophically, Minkowski was influenced by Bergson and the phenomenologist Max Scheler, who had developed separate accounts of Time, (see Bergson's 1889 work ''
Time and Free Will'' and his analyses of the irrational nature of time). Following Bergson's account of
élan vital, Minkowski developed what he named as ''vital energy'', an account of the essence of time.
He was also attracted by the practice of the Swiss psychiatrist,
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler ( ; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist most notable for his influence on modern concepts of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", " schizoid", "a ...
and attempted to synthesize ideas from psychiatry with philosophy, taking an approach similar to
Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (; ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 work ''General Psychopathology'' influenced many ...
. He introduced phenomenology as part of his investigations into psychopathology. He sought thereby to explain the experience of patients who appeared to suffer from distortions of time and/or space. Minkowski's first research into the psychopathology of schizophrenia was inspired by Bergson and appeared in his 1927 work ''La Schizophrénie'', which he thought was "due to a deficiency of intuition, a sense of time and to a progressive hypertrophy of the grasp of spatial factors". Based on his dissertation, he considered that schizophrenic patients display a "loss of vital contact with reality" unlike others who experienced life as a "lived synchronism" or what he called "syntony", a notion borrowed from
Ernst Kretschmer. According to
R.D. Laing, Minkowski made "the first serious attempt in psychiatry to reconstruct the other person's lived experience" and was "the first figure in psychiatry to bring the nature of phenomenological investigations clearly into view". He is quoted on the first page of Laing's classic ''The Divided Self'':
"Je donne une œuvre subjective ici, œuvre cependant qui tend de toutes ses forces vers l'objectivité." I offer you a subjective work, but a work which nevertheless struggles with all its might towards objectivity.
He was awarded honorary doctorates by the
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...
in 1955 and the
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...
in 1965.
Major works in French
*''La Notion de perte contact vital avec la réalité et ses applications en psychopathologie'' (Paris: Jouve, 1926)
* ''La schizophrénie: Psychopathologie des schizoïdes et des schizophrènes'' (Paris: Payot, 1927). 2nd, revised and augmented, edition (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1953).
* ''Le Temps vécu. Étude phénoménologique et psychopathologiques'' (Paris: D'Artrey, 1933)
* ''Vers une cosmologie. Fragments philosophiques'', (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1936)
* ''Traité de psychopathologie'' (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968)
* ''Au-delà du rationalisme morbide'' (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000)
* ''Écrits cliniques'', (Eres, 2002)
Articles in French
* 1920 "Famille B... et famille F..., contribution à l'étude de l'hérédité des maladies mentales" (in collaboration with F. Minkowska). ''Annales médico-psychologiques'' (Paris), LXXVII, 303–28.
* 1923 "Étude psychologique et analyse phénoménologique d'un cas de mélancolie schizophrénique.", ''Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique'', 20, 543–558.
* "Contribution à l'études des ideés d'influence" (in collaboration with R. Targowla). ''L'Encéphale'', XVIII, No.10, 652–59.
* 1925 "La genèse de la notion de schizophrénie et ses caractères essentiels", ''L'Évolution psychiatrique''.
* 1927 "De la rêverie morbide au délire d'influence", ''L'Évolution psychiatrique''.
* 1938 "Á propos de l'hygiène mentale : Quelques réflexions", ''Annales médicopsychologiques'', avril.
* 1946 "L'Anesthésie affective", ''Annales Médico-Psychologiques'', 104, 80–88.
* 1952 "Le Rorschach dans l'œuvre de F. Minkowska", ''Bulletin du groupement français du Rorschach''.
* 1963 "Vers quels horizons nous emmène Bachelard", ''Revue Internationale de Philosophie'', 17
e année, no. 66, fasc 4.
* 1964 "Métaphore et Symbole", ''Cahiers Internationaux de Symbolisme'', n°5.
* 1965 "À l'origine le un et le deux sont-ils nécessairement des nombres ? À propos du monisme et du dualisme", ''Revue philosophique de Louvain'', 63.
Articles in German
*1911 "Zur Müllerschen Lehre von den spezifischen Sinnesenergien." ''Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane'' (Leipzig), XLV, 129–52.
*1913 "Die Zenkersche Theorie der Farbenperzeption (Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis und Beurteilung der physiologischen Farbentheorien)." ''Zeitsschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane'', XLVII, No. 2, 211–22.
*1914 "Betrachtungen im Anschluss an das Prinzip des psychophysischen Parallelismus". ''Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie'' (Leipzig and Berlin), XXXI, 132–243.
*"Inhalt, symbolische Darstellung und Begründung des Grundsatzes der Identität als Grundsatz unseres Vorstellens". ''Archiv für systematische Philosophie'' (Berlin), XX, No. 2, 209–19.
*1923 "Bleuler's Schizoidie und Syntonie und das Zeiterlebnis". ''Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie'' (Berlin), LXXXII, 212–30.
*"Probleme der Vererbung von Geisteskrankheiten auf Grund von psychiatrischen un genealogischen Untersuchungen an zwei Familien" (in collaboration with F. Minskowska). ''Schweizer Archiv für Neurologie und Psychiatrie'' (Zurich), XII, 47–70.
Major work in English
* ''Lived Time: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies'', trans. by Nancy Metzel, Northwestern University Press, Evanston. 1970.
Articles in English
*1923 "Findings in a Case of Schizophrenic Depression", trans. Barbara Bliss in ''Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology''. (pp. 127–138) New York, NY, US: Basic Books.
Rollo May (ed.), 1958.
* 1926 "Bergson's Conceptions as Applied to Psychopathology", ''Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease'', 63, n°4, juin, 553–568.
[Jonathan Crary, "Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern culture".]
* 1947 "The Psychology of the Deportees", ''American OSE Review'' 4, Summer-Fall.
Articles in Polish
These include:
*''Przyroda, zwierzęcość, człowieczeństwo, bestializm'' „Przegl. Filoz". R. 44: 1948 – 'Nature, animalism, humankind and bestiality' in the Polish Philosophical Review, 44. 1948
*''Psychopatologia i psychologia („Neurologia, Neurochirurgia i Psychiatria Pol". 1956), Z zagadnień schizofrenii (tamże 1957) – 'Psychopathology and Psychology' in the Polish Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. 1956.
*''Prostota'' (w: „Szkice filozoficzne Romanowi Ingardenowi w darze", W.–Kr. 1964) – 'Simplicity' in ''Philosophical Sketches dedicated to
Roman Ingarden'', Kraków, 1964.
Articles in Spanish
*1933 "La Psiquiatria en 1932" (in collaboration with P. Guiraud). ''Revista de criminologia, psiquiatria y medicina légal'' (Buenos Aires), XX, 322–37.
*"La Psiquiatria en 1933" (in collaboration with P. Guiraud). ''Revista de criminologia'', XXI, 250–364.
References
External links
Association Françoise & Eugène MinkowskiEugène MinkowskiL'Évolution psychiatrique. 1925(in French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minkowski, Eugene
1885 births
1972 deaths
Physicians from Warsaw
French people of Polish-Jewish descent
French psychiatrists
Existential therapists
Philosophers of psychology
Phenomenologists
Schizophrenia researchers