Eduard Hitschmann, as Director of
the Ambulatorium clinic in Vienna,
seated in the middle
between Ludwig Jekel and Wilhelm Reich
(assistant director), 1922.
Source: Photograph by Ludwig
Gutmann (cropped), on Wikimedia
Commons.
Click on the image to enlarge it.
Eduard Hitschmann (1871-1957) was born in Vienna. With Paul Federn, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna and, like Federn, finished with an MD in 1895. In 1905 Federn introduced him to the ideas of Sigmund Freud and to the regular meetings of the Wednesday Psychological Society. Hitschmann proved a loyal lifelong member of that group, though he was apparently neither a creative nor original thinker - orthodox was Freud's epithet for Hitschmann - and he preferred to extend his efforts in the direction of teaching and clarification.
Hitschmann presented the first general survey of Freud's new theory of neurosis perhaps as early as 1911, and he did so without first gaining Freud's complete approval. In later years he would make contributions to the psycho-biography of such well-known figures as the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) and the American psychologist William James (1842-1910). In 1921, after Freud somewhat tardily agreed to the establishing of a walk-in psychoanalytic clinic in Vienna, Federn and Hitschmann convinced the relevant authorities to house this clinic in a nearby military hospital. By May 1922 the new venture had opened in the Pelikangasse as the Ambulatorium of the Vienna Psa. Society. As its director, Hitschmann made a large room available for the Vienna Psa. Society's Wednesday meetings, which were growing ever more popular. (Jones 1957, "Progress and Misfortune")
Faced with intensifying persecution by the Nazis, Hitschmann fled the Continent for England in 1938. As the war drew to a close, he emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, where he lived until his death in 1957.
Bibliography
Becker, Philip L. "Edward Hitschmann." In Psychoanalytic Pioneers. Eds. Franz Alexander et al. New York: Basic Books, 1966.
Hitschmann, Eduard. Freud's Theories of Neurosis. Trans. C. R. Payne. Introduction by Ernest Jones. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co., 1917. Originally published in 1911.
______. Great Men. Psychoanalytical Studies. New York: International Universities Press, 1956.
Jones, Ernest.The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Vol. III. London: Hogarth Press, 1957.
Created 28 February 2021