Matthias Bormuth: Lebensführung in der Moderne

Karl Jaspers’ criticism on psychoanalysis forms the central point of the prize-winning treatise honoured by the University of Zürich. It conveys his arguments against Freud‹s thinking with regard to the history of ideas both within the context of Psychiatry around 1900 and the cultural criticism based on existential philosophy around 1930. From a sociological aspect, their interpretation draws upon Max Weber‹s theory of modern times. By means of sources so far unpublished, the author looks into the matter of how Jaspers reacted on the decline and the revival of psychoanalysis before and after 1945. Especially the fierce controversy with Alexander Mitscherlich which continued well into the 1960s is an important part of the history of psychoanalysis and, from the point of view of contemporary history, belongs to the intellectual foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Not to neglect and of special interest to medical ethics is the implicit discourse on the limits of the physician‹s authority. This discourse also refers to the leading question of the possibilities of an individual lifestyle in modern times.