Erich Neumann (psychologist)

Erich Neumann
Born	(1905-01-23)January 23, 1905 Berlin, German Empire
Died	May 11, 1960(1960-05-11) (aged 55) Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality	German and Israeli
Fields	Psychology
Alma mater	University of Berlin
Known for	Developmental psychology
Influences	Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Johann Arnold Kanne
Influenced	Camille Paglia

Erich Neumann (Hebrew: אריך נוימן‎; January 23, 1905 – November 5, 1960), was a psychologist, philosopher, writer, and student of Carl Jung.

Career

Neumann was born in Berlin to a Jewish family. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1927 and then continued to study medicine at the University of Berlin, where he degreed in 1927. In 1934 Neumann and his wife Julia, who had been Zionists since they were teenagers, moved to Tel Aviv. For many years, he regularly returned to Zürich, Switzerland to give lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute. He also lectured frequently in England, France and the Netherlands, and was a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology and president of the Israel Association of Analytical Psychologists. He practiced analytical psychology in Tel Aviv from 1934 until his death from kidney cancer in 1960.

Contributions

Neumann contributed to the field of developmental psychology and the psychology of consciousness and creativity. He had a theoretical and philosophical approach to analysis, contrasting with the more clinical concern in England and the United States. His most valuable contribution to psychology was the empirical concept of "centroversion", a synthesis of extra- and introversion. However, he is best known for his theory of feminine development, a theory formulated in numerous publications, most notably The Great Mother. His works also elucidate the way mythology throughout history reveals aspects of the development of consciousness that are parallel in both the individual and society as a whole.

Works

His most enduring contributions to Jungian thought are The Origins and History of Consciousness (1949) and The Great Mother (1955). Another work, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, reflects on human destructiveness and the way the human mind relates to its own shadow.

Neumann further developed his studies in feminine archetypes in his Art and the Creative Unconscious, The Fear of the Feminine, and Amor and Psyche.

Neumann also wrote poetry, a novel called The Beginning (Der Anfang), and in 1932 conducted a critical study of Franz Kafka's works at a time when Kafka was still a minor figure in the literary world.

See also

Books

• Sexual Personae

Topics

• Eternal feminine
• Matriarchal religion
• Mother goddess

References

• Meier-Seethaler, C (October 1982). "The child: Erich Neumann's contribution to the psychopathology of child development". The Journal of Analytical Psychology (England) 27 (4): 357–79. ISSN 0021-8774. PMID 6754672. 
• Neumann, Erich. Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. Shambhala; Reprint edition (1990). ISBN 0-87773-571-9.
• Ortíz-Osés, Andrés. La Diosa madre. Trotta; (1996). ISBN 84-8164-099-9
• Neumann, Erich. The Child. English Translation by Ralph Manheim, C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc.; Hodder and Stoughton (1973). ISBN 0-340-16516-2.