Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Karl Abraham

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Karl Abraham
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

(born May 3, 1877, Bremen, Ger. — died Dec. 25, 1925, Berlin) German psychoanalyst. He helped establish the first branch of the International Psychoanalytic Institute in 1910 and pioneered the psychoanalytic treatment of manic-depressive psychosis (bipolar disorder). He suggested that the sexual drive develops in six stages and that if development is arrested at any of the earlier stages, mental disorders will likely result from fixation at that level. His most important work was A Short Study of the Development of the Libido (1924).

For more information on Karl Abraham, visit Britannica.com.

Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Psychoanalysis: Karl Abraham
Top
Home > Library > Health > Psychoanalysis Dictionary

1877-1925

Karl Abraham, a German psychoanalyst and doctor, was born May 3, 1877, and died December 25, 1925, in Berlin. The son of Nathan Abraham, a businessman, and Ida Oppenheim, he was the youngest of two sons in an Orthodox Jewish family. After studying medicine in Würzburg, Berlin, and Freiburg-im-Breisgau, he married his cousin Hedwig Bürgner in 1906. They had two children; his daughter was the well-known psychoanalyst Hilda Abraham.

Abraham began his training in psychiatry in Berlin, then in Zurich with Eugen Bleuler, where the physician-in-chief was Carl Gustav Jung. It was here that he became familiar with Freud's writings. In 1907 he opened an office in Berlin and, in 1910, founded the Berlin Institute of Psychoanalysis. From 1914 to 1918 he was mobilized as chief physician in a psychiatric unit. It was during this time that he grew interested in studying war neuroses. He was president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) from 1918 to 1925.

A student and friend of Freud, he was a member of the secret "Committee" from its inception. In 1918, he received an award in recognition of his work in analysis. Co-editor of the Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, and Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, he was the analyst and teacher of Felix Boehm, Helene Deutsch, Edward and James Glover, Karen Horney, Melanie Klein, Carl Müller-Braunschweig, Sándor Radó, Theodor Reik, and Ernst Simmel.

In addition to his research on collective psychology ("Dreams and Myths," 1909/1949), Abraham made important original contributions to the study of the development of the libido, including Versuch einer Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido auf Frund der Psychoanalyse seelischer Störungen (1924) (A Short Study of the Development of the Libido Viewed in the Light ofMental Disorders, 1929). Abraham's starting point was Freud's theory of the stages of pregenital organization (1916-1917). He introduced a differentiation in the phase of libido development designated by Freud as oral-cannibalistic by proposing the existence of two aspects of oral activity—sucking and biting. Based on this hypothesis, he inferred two different modes of infantile object relation, incorporation by sucking and destruction by biting. This last relation was said to introduce the conflict of ambivalence into the infant's life. Starting with this conflict, Abraham interpreted the ego disturbances of the melancholic adult: the ambivalence of the instinctual life causes a withdrawal of libidinal cathexis from the object; the liberated libido then turns toward the ego, which introjects the object. Abraham links the psychogenesis of melancholy with the disappointing mother during the early infantile phase of libido development. If it occurs before the successful mastery of oedipal wishes, that is, during the phase preceding the triumph of the narcissistic stage, then an associative link is made between the Oedipus complex and the cannibalistic stage of libido development. This would make possible the consecutive introjection of the two love objects, the father and mother.

Even before Abraham had begun to study manic-depressive psychosis (from 1916 to 1924), he had made an important discovery in the research on schizophrenia in Die psychosexuelle Differenz der Hysterie und der Dementia Präcox (1908) (Psychosexual Differences between Hysteria and Dementia Praecox, 1949): Disturbances of ego functions are secondary with respect to the disturbances in the libidinal area. Thus Abraham could make use of libido theory to understand dementia praecox. In this same work Abraham introduced the concept of "autism," which was later taken up by Eugen Bleuler (1911).

Abraham is one of the founders of psychoanalytic research on psychoses, on collective psychoanalytic psychology and, with Sándor Ferenczi and Ernst Simmel, on the psychoanalysis of war neuroses. His principal work, "Examination of the Earliest Pregenital Stage of Libido Development," has continued to stimulate research in the field down to the present day. The Psychoanalytic Training Institute he created in Berlin has become a model for other institutes throughout the world and the current Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin bears his name. Abraham published five books and 115 articles and made numerous presentations at IPA congresses. His complete works have been collected and translated into several languages.

Bibliography

Abraham, Karl. (1949). Dreams and myths: A study in race psychology. In Selected papers of Karl Abraham, M.D. (Douglas Bryan and Alix Strachey, Trans.). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. (Original work published 1909) ——. (1949). A short study of the development of the libido viewed in the light of mental disorders. In Selected papers of Karl Abraham, M.D. (Douglas Bryan and Alix Strachey, Trans.). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. (Original work published 1924)

Cremerius, Johannes. (1969-1971). Karl Abraham: psycho-analytische Studien. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer.

Freud, Sigmund. (1926). Karl Abraham. SE, 20: 277-278.

Grinstein, Alexander. (1968). On Sigmund Freud's dreams. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

—JOHANNES CREMERIUS

Wikipedia: Karl Abraham
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Karl Abraham

Karl Abraham
Born 3 May 1877
Died 25 December 1925
Nationality German
Fields psychiatry

Karl Abraham (3 May 1877 – 25 December 1925) was an early German psychoanalyst, and a correspondent of Sigmund Freud, who called him his 'best pupil'.[1] He founded the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, and was the president of the International Psychoanalytical Association from 1914 to 1918 and again in 1925.

Karl Abraham collaborated with Freud on the understanding of manic-depressive illness, leading to Freud's paper on 'Mourning and Melancholia' in 1917. He was the analyst of Melanie Klein during 1924-1925, and of a number of other British psychoanalysts, including Edward Glover, James Glover, and Alix Strachey. He was a mentor for an influential group of German analysts, including Karen Horney, Helene Deutsch, and Franz Alexander.

Karl Abraham studied the role of infant sexuality in character development and mental illness and, like Freud, suggested that if psychosexual development is fixated at some point, mental disorders will likely emerge. He described the personality traits and psychopathology that result from the oral and anal stages of development (1921;1924a). In the oral stage of development, the first relationships children have with objects (caretakers) determine their subsequent relationship to reality. Oral satisfaction can result in self-assurance and optimism, whereas oral fixation can lead to pessimism and depression. Moreover, a person with an oral fixation will present a disinclination to take care of him/herself and will require others to look after him/her This may be expressed through extreme passivity (corresponding to the oral benign suckling substage) or through a highly active oral-sadistic behaviour (corresponding to the later sadistic biting substage) (1924a). In the anal stage, when the training in cleanliness starts too early, conflicts may result between a conscious attitude of obedience and an unconscious desire for resistance. This can lead to traits such as frugality, orderliness and obstinacy, as well as to obsessional neurosis as a result of anal fixation (Abraham,1921) . In addition, Abraham based his understanding of manic-depressive illness on the study of the painter Segantini: an actual event of loss is not itself sufficient to bring the psychological disturbance involved in melancholic depression. This disturbance is linked with disappointing incidents of early childhood; in the case of men always with the mother (Abraham, 1911). This concept of the prooedipal “bad” mother was a new development in contrast to Freud’s oedipal mother and paved the way for the theories of Melanie Klein (May-Tolzmann,1997). Another important contribution is his work “A short study of the Development of the Libido” (1924b), where he elaborated on Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917) and demonstrated the vicissitudes of normal and pathological object relations and reactions to object loss. Moreover, Abraham investigated child sexual trauma and, like Freud, proposed that sexual abuse was common among psychotic and neurotic patients. Furthermore, he argued (1907) that dementia praecox is associated with child sexual trauma, based on the relationship between hysteria and child sexual trauma demonstrated by Freud.

Abraham (1920) also showed interest in cultural issues. He analyzed various myths suggesting their relation to dreams (1909) and wrote an interpretation of the spiritual activities of the monotheistic Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1912).


Contents

Publications

Quotes

A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work

What did we get ourselves into?

References

  1. ^ Freud Museum at www.freud.org.uk
  • May, Ulrike (2007), "[Remarks on the Introduction to Karl Abraham's collected works (1969-71)]", Luzifer-Amor : Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse 20 (39): 145–52, PMID 17992845 
  • Kuhn, P (2000), "A scandal in Salzburg or Freud's surreptitious role in the 1908 Abraham-Jung dispute.", The International journal of psycho-analysis 81 ( Pt 4): 705–31, 2000 Aug, PMID 11028235 
  • Sklarew, B (1999), "Freud and film: encounters in the Weltgeist.", Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 47 (4): 1238–47, PMID 10650559 
  • Machtlinger, V (1997), "[Karl Abraham and Giovanni Segantini]", Luzifer-Amor : Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse 10 (20): 81–97, PMID 11625348 
  • Decke, B (1997), "[Karl Abraham: family, childhood and youth in Bremen]", Luzifer-Amor : Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse 10 (20): 7–60, PMID 11625347 
  • Cremerius, J (1997), "[Karl Abraham, Freud's scapegoat and, guide to understanding the truth]", Luzifer-Amor : Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse 10 (20): 64–80, PMID 11625346 
  • Good, M I (1995), "Karl Abraham, Sigmund Freud, and the fate of the seduction theory.", Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 43 (4): 1137–67, PMID 8926328 
  • Shengold, L (1972), "A parapraxis of Freud's in relation to Karl Abraham.", The American imago; a psychoanalytic journal for the arts and sciences 29 (2): 123–59, PMID 4562662 

Abraham, K.(1907). On the significance of Sexual Trauma in Childhood for the Symptomatology of Dementia Praecox. In Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed) (1955). Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis. London : The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Abraham, K.(1909). Dreams and Myths : A study in folk-Psychology. In Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed) (1955). Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis. London : The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Abraham, K.(1911). Giovanni Segantini : A Psycho-analytical Study. In Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed) (1955). Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis. London : The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Abraham, K. (1912). Amenhotep IV. Psycho-analytical Contributions Towards the understanding of his Personality and of the Monotheistic Cult of Aton. . In Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed) (1955). Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis. London : The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis. Abraham, K. (1920). The Cultural Significance of Psycho-analysis. In Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed) (1955). Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis. London : The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Abraham, K (1921).  Contributions to the theory of the anal character. In Stein, D.J, Stone, M. H. (Ed) (1997). Essential papers on obsessive-compulsive disorders. New York: New York University Press.

Abraham, K (1924a). The influence of oral erotism on character-formation. In Perzow, S. M., Kets de Vries, M.F.R. (Ed) (1991). Handbook of character studies: Psychoanalytic explorations. Madison, CT: International Universities Press. Abraham, K. (1924b). A short study of the development of the libido. In Frankiel, R.V. (Ed) (1994). Essential papers on object loss, New York: New York University Press. Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and Melancholia. Standard Edition, 14, 305-307. May-Tolzmann, U. (1997). The Discovery of the Bad Mother: Abraham’s contribution to the theory of Depression. Luzifer-Amor: Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse, 10(20), 98-131.

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Psychoanalysis. International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Copyright © 2005 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Karl Abraham".  Read more