Invitation to Book Launch | Herbert Rosenfeld - Then and Now: The Significance of His Work for Contemporary Psychoanalysis

You are warmly invited to the book launch of a new book, entitled.

Herbert Rosenfeld - Then and Now: The Significance of His Work for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. 

The book is edited and contains papers by two German analysts, Karin Johanna Zienert-Eilts and Wolfgang Hegener. It seeks to combine biographical information on Rosenfeld and to link this with his important contributions to the understanding of clinical and cultural phenomena. It features papers by his daughter, Angela Rosenfeld and a number of eminent psychoanalysts who have been inspired by Rosenfeld: Herman Beland, Ronald Britton, Hans-Jürgen Eilts, Claudia Frank, Angela Goyena, Carolin Haas, Franco de Masi, Riccardo Steiner, Nils F. Töpfer and Klaus Wilde. Irma Brenman Pick and John Steiner provide prefaces to the book.

The evening will be chaired by Vic Sedlak, the current President of the British Psychoanalytical Society. The two editors will present an overview of the book and its individual sections: biographical, clinical and cultural. This will be followed by an open discussion, including contributions by the authors of the individual chapters.

A special focus of the presentation will be on the connection between Great Britain and Germany, the two countries that were decisive for Rosenfeld's life. He was forced to leave his home country in order to protect himself from the threat of persecution, found a new home in England and yet endeavoured to re-establish personal and professional contacts with Germany in the post-war period. There, Rosenfeld was not only of decisive importance for the dissemination of Kleinian psychoanalysis, but also provided the psychoanalysts working there with essential suggestions for coming to terms with the National Socialist past. The book presented here seeks to build a bridge back and a new connection between the two countries and their psychoanalytical cultures.

This is also intended to be a commemoration and a celebration of one of the most important European post war analysts. Herbert Rosenfeld was forced to leave his home country of Germany as a young man because of persecution; he found a new home in England and there enjoyed great professional success and prestige. Yet he endeavoured to re-establish personal and professional contacts with Germany in the post-war period; he was not only of decisive importance for the dissemination of Kleinian psychoanalysis, but also provided German psychoanalysts with important insights about Germany’s National Socialist past.  His paper “Applying my theory of psychosis to the Nazi Phenomenon” is one of the chapters of the book.

The book seeks to build a bridge and new connections between the two countries and their psychoanalytical cultures.

The evening will be an opportunity to learn about this remarkable man and his thought.