Book Launch: 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.

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.