While Charlotte Beradt was secretly collecting dreams that revealed the hidden fears of life under Nazism, psychoanalysis itself was being outlawed.
Branded “the Jewish Science,” it was banned, its leading figures exiled, and psychology dismissed as irrelevant to the Nazi vision of strength and conformity. Yet therapy did not vanish. Under the protection of Hermann Göring’s cousin, a new institute was established in Berlin, not to heal people, but to mould therapists to serve the regime.
In this conversation, Stephen Frosh, Professor in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, and journalist and filmmaker Amanda Rubin explore how ideas of the self, the mind, and healing were reshaped to fit an authoritarian system and ask what shadows of this history still linger today.
Frosh is a leading voice in psychoanalysis and psychology, and has written widely on psychoanalysis, antisemitism, and social identity, including Hauntings and Hate and the Jewish Science. His forthcoming book, Antisemitism and Racism: Ethical Challenges for Psychoanalysis, will be published by Bloomsbury.
