Anna Borgos - Women in the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis

This book explores the lives, scholarly oeuvres and intellectual connections of the significant first-generation Hungarian female psychoanalysts, situating their lives within the wider context of social history and the history of psychoanalysis.

Budapest was one of the main centres of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century in a period which was also central regarding womens changing roles and possibilities. Favourable social circumstances met a new, freshly developing professions need for receptive followers regardless of their sex. This book shines a light on the social and professional factors on the life and work of these first women psychoanalysts, examining documentary evidence of their lives and drawing upon the literature of psychoanalysis, social history, and gender studies. Through their life stories, not only the history of psychoanalysis, but also the processes of 20th-century womens history and social-political developments in Hungary and the region can be reconstructed. Key psychoanalysts explored include Lilly Hajdu, Edit Gymri, Alice Blint, Vilma Kovcs, Lillin Rotter and twelve further women analysts.

This important book will be of interest to researchers in gender studies, the history of psychoanalysis, womens and gender history, and Eastern European history.

Anna Borgos is a psychologist and womens historian, working as a research fellow in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Budapest. She holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Pcs. She is the editor in chief of the Hungarian psychoanalytic journal, Img Budapest. She has published several books and articles in Hungarian womens history, mostly connecting to literature, psychoanalysis and sexuality. Most recently she co-edited a volume with Ferenc Ers and Jlia Gyimesi, Psychology and Politics: Intersections of Science and Ideology in the History of Psy-Sciences (2019).

Global Gender

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Women in the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis
Girls of Tomorrow
Anna Borgos

https://www.routledge.com/Global-Gender/book-series/RGG

First published in English 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Anna Borgos

English translation of Chapters Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven Anna Borgos

English translation of Chapters One, Two, Eight and Nine Katalin Rcz

The right of Anna Borgos to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The right of Katalin Rcz to be identified as translator of Chapters One, Two, Eight and Nine has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Originally published in Hungarian by Noran Libro Kft. 2018.

The book is a revised version of the original edition Holnaplnyok: Nk a pszichoanalzis budapesti iskoljban published by Noran Libro Kft. 2018.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Borgos, Anna, author.
Title: Women in the Budapest school of psychoanalysis : girls of tomorrow / Anna Borgos.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Global gender | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021008972 (print) | LCCN 2021008973 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367650865 (hbk) | ISBN 9780367650889 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003127765 (ebk) | ISBN 9781000413403 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781000413434 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Women and psychoanalysis--Hungary--Budapest--History--20th century. | Women psychoanalysts--Hungary--Budapest--History--20th century. | Psychoanalysis--Hungary--Budapest--History--20th century. | Ferenczi, Sndor, 1873-1933.
Classification: LCC BF173 .B6825 2021 (print) | LCC BF173 (ebook) | DDC 150.19/50943912--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008972
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008973

ISBN: 978-0-367-65086-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-65088-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-12776-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by SPi Global, India

.

The expression girl of tomorrow was used in 1910 by Lilly Hajdu, who later became a prominent Hungarian psychoanalyst.1 She applied it to herself at a time when she was studying medicine and, more generally, she referred to girls who looked forward and were ahead of their era and contemporaries. She believed the phrase could apply to those who shifted from the traditional ideal of women (behind which reality was far more complex already then) and regarded themselves primarily as intellectual, creative persons and partners.

This book is about them.

Women played a significant role in psychoanalysis in several ways: as parts of the theory, patients and analysts alike. These roles can be examined independently from one another, yet it is productive to take into account the relationship, the contradictions and the tension between them. In the theories and the therapy woman usually appears as the object of research or treatment who, in effect, serves as a tool for outlining certain concepts (Oedipus complex, the formation of the superego, etc.). Freudian theory is basically built on biological determinism and presumes the dichotomic way of psychosexual development in which the female side is associated with passivity, both symbolically and concretely. However, the exploration of the psychoanalyst role concerns the (real) woman as an active and creative person who found her place in the institution of psychoanalysis, and it makes the examination of the social conditions necessary. Freud tried to resolve this contradiction maintaining the malefemale dichotomy when he addressed the assumed doubts of female analysts: We had only to say: This does not apply to you. You are the exception. In this respect you are more masculine than feminine.2