Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud's legacy (1856 - 1939), has had a profound impact on modern society. Chicago shares this legacy, as the following brief history of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis shows. Psychoanalysis was formally introduced to the Chicago medical community in 1911 with a lecture by Ernest Jones, an early disciple of Sigmund Freud. The reaction to Jones' lecture was mixed, and it was another 22 years before the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis came into existence in 1932. The Institute's founding director, Franz Alexander, came from Berlin. Alexander was a pupil of Freud and the Institute's archives contain a postcard in which Freud refers to Alexander as one of his best students.

One of Alexander's first acts was to bring a fellow Berliner, Karen Horney, to Chicago to serve as the Institute's Associate Director. Dr. Horney was the first in a stellar array of influential female teachers and researchers to work at the Institute. One of the most notable of these women was Therese Benedek, who came from Leipzig in 1936 and emerged as a leading researcher in female psychology. The Institute's second director, Austrian émigré Gerhart Piers brought it into closer relation with the community. Under his tenure, a child therapy program, an adolescent therapy program, and a teacher-training
program were established. Pier's successor, George H. Pollock put forth a bold and experimental proposal to train a small group of non-medical analysts. This proposal, which became known as the “Chicago Plan,” was rejected but proved prophetic, for, in years to come, non-medical analysts would become an important part of the psychoanalytic community. During Pollock’s tenure, the Institute established the Barr-
Harris Children's Grief Center. It also founded the Annals of Psychoanalysis, one of the
premier publications for psychoanalytic thought and inquiry. In 1996, the Institute moved to its present quarters in the historic building designed by Daniel Burnham at the corner of Michigan and Adams streets in downtown Chicago. This location places the Institute in the heart of the city's cultural community. After the directorships of Arnold Goldberg and Thomas Pappadis, Jerome Winer became director of the Institute. He contiues to steer it toward increased community involvement while at the same time reinforcing the foundation of Freudian analysis upon which the Institute rests - a foundation that traces its origins in Chicago to several German-speaking pioneers in the field of psychoanalysis.

Websites:
http://www.chicagoanalysis.org/
Freud Museum London
Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna

(Author: Jerome Kavka, M.D., Archivist at
the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis)