Kurt R. Eissler

Kurt Robert Eissler (2 July 1908 – 17 February 1999) was an Austrian psychoanalyst and a close associate and follower of Sigmund Freud.

Training and contributions[edit]

K. R. Eissler took a PhD in psychology at Vienna University in 1934 and underwent a training analysis with August Aichhorn. His first psychoanalytic contribution, an article on early female development, was published in 1939, to be followed by others on anorexia nervosa and shock treatment.^[1] With the Anschluss, Eissler moved to the States with his wife, fellow psychoanalyst Ruth Selke Eissler. There he developed into a combative supporter of the Freudian theory. Of his twelve, often heated and extensive books,^[2] about half dealt with issues in Freud's life and work, the other half with figures from high culture such as Shakespeare and Goethe.

Eissler provided a spirited defense of the death drive,^[3] and introduced the term "parameter" to codify deviations from pure interpretation in the Freudian tradition.^[4]

He saw creative art as emanating from an asocial element in the artist's mind, and as offering a form of conflict-resolution that need not be shared by the artist themselves.^[5] He also considered that some forms of regression were of benefit to the artist in enabling them to break out of "the traditional pattern that he has been forced to integrate through the identifications necessitated and enforced by the oedipal constellation".^[6]

The Sigmund Freud Archives[edit]

Eissler is also known for his work in establishing and filling the Sigmund Freud Archives, a wide-ranging collection of primary material relating to the life of Freud. The collection has not, however, proved uncontroversial. The historian Peter Gay commended Eissler on the one hand for his industry in preserving so much otherwise scattered and ephemeral material, but on the other hand challenged (on several occasions) his policy of restricting scholarly access to the said material.^[7] Freud historian Peter J. Swales also objected to the restrictions that Eissler imposed.^[8]

Controversy also surrounded his choice of successor for the Sigmund Freud Archives.^[9]

Characteristics[edit]

Janet Malcolm described Eissler as a "singular mixture of brilliance, profundity, originality, and moral beauty on the one hand, and willfulness, stubbornness, impetuosity, and maddening guilelessness on the other".^[10] He was also an atheist.^[11]

Selected publications[edit]

Articles[edit]

• 'On Certain Problems of Female Sexual Development' Psychoanalytic Quarterly VIII (1939)
• 'Psychopathology and Creativity', American Imago 24 (1967)
• 'Death Drive, Ambivalence, and Narcissism', The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child XXVI (1971)

Books[edit]

• Goethe: A Psychoanalytic Study (1963)
• Medical Orthodoxy and the Future of Psychoanalysis (1965)
• Talent and Genius: The Fictitious Case of Tausk Contra Freud (1971)
• Three Instances of Injustice (1993)
• Freud and the Seduction Theory: A Brief Love Affair (2001)

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Kurt R. Eissler
• On parameters

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (May 2016) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,112 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Kurt Eissler]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Kurt Eissler}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.