Victor Tausk (also Viktor; March 12, 1879 – July 3, 1919) was a pioneer

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 ...

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 ...

. A student and a colleague of

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 psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

, he was the earliest exponent of psychoanalytical concepts with regard to clinical

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

and the

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...

of the artist.

Career

Tausk was born as son of a Jewish journalist. He had been a lawyer and writer when he began to study medicine in Vienna around 1910. 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 ...

and soon began to contribute papers. In 1900 he converted from Judaism to Protestantism. During the First World War, he was recruited as a military doctor. The originality of his contribution to military medicine is contained in his theories on psychoses and his understanding of the phenomenon of desertion (Tréhel, G., 2006). Building up on his war experience, he wrote on war-induced psychoses while the other psychoanalysts were working on war neurosis. He took part in the debate on the disorder within the Society (Tréhel, G., 2011). In 1919, after he had stepped out from Freud's shadow, Tausk published a paper on the origin of a delusion common to a wide array of schizophrenic patients, namely that an alien device, malignant and remote, had influenced their thoughts and their behavior. This device was referred to as ''the Influencing Machine'' and the paper was called " On the Origin of the "Influencing Machine" in Schizophrenia". It is the most well known of his publications, reaching beyond his own field of research into others, such as

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mo ...

, for example. This work influenced many later theorists of psychoanalysis, including

Heinz Kohut Heinz Kohut (3 May 1913 – 8 October 1981) was an Austrians, Austrian-born United States, American psychoanalyst best known for his development of self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamics, psychodynamic/psychoanaly ...

in his book ''Analysis of the Self'' where narcissistic regression showed great similarities with psychotic fantasmatic configurations. His many other works include ''On Masturbation'' and ''The Psychology of the War Deserter'', all of which have generated much controversy and discussion, arguably due to his experience within the psychoanalytic community. However, Paul Roazen has argued that Tausk's legacy is still ongoing, and that his influence has not been properly acknowledged by the psychological, or psychoanalytical communities.

Freud and death

On the morning of July 3, 1919, after

Helene Deutsch Helene Deutsch (née Rosenbach; 9 October 1884 – 29 March 1982) was a Polish American psychoanalyst and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She founded the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1935, she immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where sh ...

had stopped Tausk's treatment after Freud had demanded it, and after a complicated relation with Freud and

Lou Andreas-Salomé Lou Andreas-Salomé (born either Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé or Lioulia von Salomé, russian: link=no, Луиза Густавовна Саломе; 12 February 1861 – 5 February 1937) was a Russian-born psychoanalyst and a ...

, Tausk committed suicide by tying a curtain braid around his neck, then placing a pistol against his right temple and firing, hanging himself as he fell. Freud wrote to Salomé that ''"I confess that I do not really miss him; I had long realised that he could be of no further service; indeed that he constituted a threat to the future."''Cited in Clark (1980), p. 399

Selected bibliography

* Victor Tausk. ''Sexuality, War and Schizophrenia: Collected Psychoanalytic Papers (Philanthropy and Society)'' (1990)

Books on Viktor Tausk

* Kurt R. Eissler. ''Victor Tausk's Suicide'' (1983) * Kurt R. Eissler. ''Talent and genius: The fictitious case of Tausk contra Freud'' (1971) * Paul Roazen. ''Brother Animal: The Story of Freud and Tausk'' (1969) * Gilles Tréhel. Victor Tausk (1879-1919) et la médecine militaire, ''L'information Psychiatrique'', 2006, vol. 82, n°3, p. 239-247. * Gilles Tréhel. Victor Tausk (1879-1919) : une théorisation sur les psychoses de guerre, ''Perspectives Psy'', 2011, vol. 50, n°2, p. 162-175.

References

External links