DEUTSCH, FELIX

DEUTSCH, FELIX (1884–1964), psychiatrist. Born in Vienna, Deutsch grew up in a liberal atmosphere without any formal religious background. Faced with the antisemitic environment of Vienna University, he joined the Zionist student organization Kadima, and became a leading figure with a reputation for fighting on the side of minority groups. He was a friend of Herzl and was one of the pallbearers at his funeral. In 1921 he lectured in medicine at Vienna University.

As early as 1919 Deutsch established a clinic for "organneuroses," a result of his scientific preoccupation with emotional factors in physical illness. This interest led him to psychoanalysis and to close association with Freud. As a result of his interest and influence, the first home of the Psychoanalytic Clinic was established in 1922 in Vienna. He produced many publications on the interaction of emotional and physical processes and became one of the pioneers of psychosomatic medicine. With the advent of Hitler, Deutsch immigrated to the United States in 1935, became research fellow in psychiatry at Harvard University, and held various teaching positions. From 1951 to 1954 he was president of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He wrote articles on an astonishing variety of medical and psychoanalytical topics. Terms like "associative anamnesis," "sector psychotherapy," and "posturology" coined by him enriched the scientific language. In 1939, he published an essay on "The Production of Somatic Disease by Emotional Disturbance," in Inter-Relationship of Mind and Body (published by the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease), and in 1949, Applied Psychoanalysis. Deutsch never abandoned his Zionist ideals and his last project, cut short by his death, was a study of the art of children gathered in Israel from all corners of the world.

bibliography:

G.W. Flagg, in: F. Alexander et al. (eds.), Psychoanalytic Pioneers (1966), 299–307; A. Grinstein, Index of Psychoanalytic Writings, 1 (1956), 380–4. add. bibliography: G. Hohendorf, "Felix Deutsch und die Entwicklung der psychosomatischen Medizin," in: C. Kaiser and M.-L. Wuensche (eds.), Die "Nervosität der Juden" und andere Leiden an der Zivilisation und Konzepte individueller Krankheiten im psychiatrischen Diskurs um 1900 (2003), 207–26.

[Heinrich Zwi Winnik]