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Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen

Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen (née Nielsen;^[1] 17 July 1917 – 12 June 2012) or the "Grande Dame of German Psychoanalysis" as she was often referred to as, was a German psychoanalyst ^[2][3] who focused mainly on the themes of feminism, female sexuality, and the national psychology of post-war Germany.

Life^[4][edit | edit source]

Margarete Nielsen was born June 17, 1917, as the youngest daughter to Doctor Nis Peter Nielsen and his wife Margarete (Nee Leopold). Most of Nielsen's young life was spent in Denmark, until she moved to Germany. While in Germany Nielsen devoted much of her time to studying literature and eventually received the highest possible certificate or "abitur" in 1937 from a private institution located in Flensburg. After studying literature she decided to follow in her father's footsteps and study medicine at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg. She passed the first state exam in 1944 and received a doctorate from the University of Tübingen in 1950.^[5]In the following years Nielsen completed her psychoanalytic training at the London institute led by Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Michael Balint.

Her professional work with psychoanalysis began at an anthroposophical clinic in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where she met her future husband Alexander Mitscherlich, the two married in 1955 and eventually returned to Germany. Once in Germany Nielsen took up work at a psychosomatic clinic her husband directed at Heidelberg, before moving to Frankfurt. In 1960, the couple became co-founders of the Sigmund-Freud-Institut dedicated to psychoanalytic research.

Contributions to Psychology[edit | edit source]

The Mitscherlichs worked alongside the protagonists of the Frankfourt School, in developing key points of post-war Germany's intellectual debates. The group offered psychoanalytic thought for explaining the causes behind Nazi Germany and the aftermath it had on German society, up to the present day. The first major book written by the Mitscherlirchs was titled Die Unfähigkeit zu trauern. Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens (The Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behaviour). It was first published in 1967 and focused heavily on why the Holocaust, the war crimes, and the sentiment of guilt on the offender's part were not dealt with adequately in post-war German society.^[6]

Margarete Mitscherlich's interest in feminism grew, as she became closer friends with German feminist journalist Alice Schwarzer. In November 1977, Mitscherlich confessed while being interviewed for the journal "Ich bin Feministin" ("I am a feminist"). Around this time, Mitscherlich began to take an active part in legal actions against anti-women depictions in popular German media. In 1985, Mitcherlich published Die friedfertige Frau. Eine psychoanalytische Untersuchung zur Aggression der Geschlechter (The peaceable sex: On aggression in women and men) which to this day is her most well known book. This book, dedicated to women's role in German politics, was followed by 1987 publishing of Die Zukunft ist weiblich (The future is feminine, 1987), where she pleaded for German values to become more feminine.

Until well into her nineties, Mitscherlich worked as a psychoanalyst, advising younger colleagues and commenting political developments in the press. In her latest book, published in 2010, aged 93, Die Radikalität des Alters. Einsichten einer Psychoanalytikerin (The Radicality of Age. Insights of a Psychoanalyst) she reflects upon her own experience of aging.^[8]

In 1990 Mitscherlich received the Ehrenplakette der Stadt Frankfurt am Main. Followed by her 2001 reward of the the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and her 2005 award of theTony-Sender-Preis der Stadt Frankfurt am Main . Mitscherlich lived in  Frankfurt Westend until 2012 where she died at age 94. To this day Margarete Mitscherlich - Nielson is known for her notability and her highly politicized nature of her work when many of her peers considered neutrality an essential element of psychoanalysis.