Otto gross and carl gustav jung biography

In one of the very few eulogies that were published, Otto Kaus wrote, "Germany's best revolutionary spirits have been educated and directly inspired by him.

Otto gross and carl gustav jung biography: This paper is a

In a considerable number of powerful creations by the young generation one finds his ideas with that specific keenness and those far-reaching consequences that he was able to inspire"p. Except for Wilhelm Stekel, who wrote a brief eulogy, published in New York Stekel,but who was a psychoanalytic outcast himself by that time, and a mere announcement of Gross' death by Ernest Jones at the Eighth International Psycho-Analytical Congress in Salzburg four years later, the analytic world remained silent, a silence that has, with very few exceptions, effectively lasted to this day.

What were the ideas Otto Gross contributed to the development of analytical theory and practice and what was it about them - and himself - that finally made him persona non grata - or an "non-person", to use the Stalinist term? His personal experience of what appears to have been an overpowering father and a subservient mother, early on provided Gross with an experience of the roots of emotional suffering in relationships within a nuclear family structure.

He wrote in favour of the freedom and equality of women and advocated free choice of partners and new forms of relationships which he envisaged as free from the use of force and violence. He made links between these issues and the hierarchical structures within the wider context of society and came to regard individual suffering as inseparable from that of all humanity: "The psychoanalyst's consulting room contains all of humanity's suffering from itself" Gross,p.

In his struggle against patriarchy in all its manifestations, Gross was fascinated by the ideas of Bachofen and others on matriarchy. He focussed on sexuality, yet soon came to question Freud's emphasis on it as the sole root of the neuroses. In contrast to Freud's view of the limits placed on human motivation by the unconscious, Gross saw pathologies as being rooted in more positive and creative tendencies in the unconscious.

He wrote extensively about same-sex sexuality in both men and women and argued against its discrimination. For Gross, psychoanalysis was a weapon in a countercultural revolution to overthrow the existing order - not a means to force people to adapt better to it. He wrote, "The psychology of the unconscious is the philosophy of the revolution.

It is called upon to enable an inner freedom, called upon as preparation for the revolution" a, columnemphasis O. He saw body and mind as one, inseparable, writing that, "each psychical process is at the same time a physiological one" Gross,p. For them body and soul are the expressions of one and the same process, and therefore a human being can only be seen holistically and as a whole" Hurwitz,p.

Nicolaus Sombart summarizes two main points. Without hesitation, Otto Gross owned up to practicing this -in accordance with anarchist principles - by the propaganda of the "example", first by an examplary way of life aimed at destroying the limitations of society within himself; second as a psychotherapist by trying to realize new forms of social life experimentally in founding unconventional relationships and communes for example in Ascona from where he was expelled as an instigator of "orgies".

Gross was not homosexual but he saw bisexuality as a given and held that no man could know why he was loveable for a woman if he did not know about his own homosexual component. His respect of the sovereign freedom of human beings went so far that he did not only recognise their right for illness as an expression of a legitimate protest against a repressive society - here he is a forerunner of the Anti-Psychiatry of Ronald D.

Laing and Alain Fourcade - but their death wishes as well, and as a physician he helped with the realization of those, too. He was prosecuted and incarcerated for assisting suicide. His second thesis: Whoever wants to change the structures of power and production in a repressive society, has to start by changing these structures in himself and to eradicate the "authority that has infiltrated one's own inner being".

In his opinion it is the achievement of psychoanalysis as a science to have created the preconditions and to have provided the instruments for this Sombart,pp. Behind Gross' emphatic focus on otto gross and carl gustav jung biography lies a profound realisation of the interconnectedness of everyone and everything. Therefore all boundaries may be seen as arbitrary and transgressing boundaries then becomes a protest against their unnaturalness.

From a psychopathological perspective it would be all too facile to diagnose - not unreasonably, though - a father complex, an unresolved incestuous tie to the mother, a neurotic longing for paradise as a return to the womb etc. Very similar diagnoses, incidentally, could easily be made of the other founding fathers of analysis.

Otto Gross, a renegade pupil of Sigmund Freud, enfant terrible of psychoanalysis, sexual immoralist, genius, and psychiatric case — these attributes showcase the complexity and contradictions of his personality. His works delved into criminology, cultural criticism, Darwinism, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. He actively lived out his theories with disastrous effects on himself.

Otto Gross remains a figure of both genius and tragedy, whose innovative thoughts on the human psyche continue to provoke interest and debate. His ideas resonated with and influenced key figures in both psychoanalysis and literature, such as Freud and Jung, and even literary figures like Franz Kafka.

Otto gross and carl gustav jung biography: Following a biographical sketch and

Despite his marginalization, his ideas had a lasting impact on the field of psychoanalysis and beyond. His life and work serve as a testament to the deeply intertwined nature of personal pathology and societal structure. Modern psychoanalysis increasingly considers the impact of sociopolitical factors on individual psychology. Issues such as gender, sexuality, and the mind-body connection, which Gross was among the first to address, remain central to contemporary psychoanalytic discourse.

His contributions to psychoanalytical theory and practice are as controversial as they are profound. Bernd A. Marburg,pp. Gottfried M. The suppressed psychoanalytic and political significance of Otto Gross. New York Kerr, John. Gerhard M. Internationaler Otto Gross Kongress, Graz Oktober Martin Green: Otto Gross. Freudian Psychoanalyst, — Literature and Ideas.

Otto Gross,Biographical Survey. References [ edit ].

Otto gross and carl gustav jung biography: Otto Hans Adolf Gross

External links [ edit ]. Authority control databases. Deutsche Biographie DDB. Categories : births deaths Austrian psychoanalysts Austrian anarchists Philosophers of sexuality Deaths from pneumonia in Germany Austrian modern pagans Psychoanalysts from Austria-Hungary Anarchists from Austria-Hungary. Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Articles with hCards.

Toggle the table of contents. Otto Gross. Scientific career. He encountered and absorbed Freud's works from as early ascalling him "my first instructor in the practice of psycho-analysis" Jones"The Beginning of International Recognition". Sigmund Freud himself declared Gross, along with Jung, to be "the only truly original minds" amongst his followers in Jones Clearly Gross was becoming a force amongst the Viennese analysts, though this was not to last.

Probable schizophrenia and a known morphine addiction soon drew him to Jung's Swiss clinic for treatment Jones