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EXHIBIT Organized Escape: Psychoanalysts in Exile
June 3, 2023 at 10:00 AM to October 15, 2023 at 4:00 PM Eastern
Free
An exhibit that tells the unique history of the collective escape of these Jewish Viennese psychoanalysts through selected biographies, numerous images, and original, written documents. Open Thursday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), through October 15, 2023 (or by appointment).
Open Thursday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), through October 15, 2023 (or by appointment)
This exhibition, which travels to the Corner House community exhibition space at the Austen Riggs Center from the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, tells the unique history of the collective escape of these Jewish Viennese psychoanalysts through selected biographies, numerous images, and original, written documents. From the detailed lists and plans laid out by Anna Freud and the leaders of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society (WPV), to their joyous reunion at the Austen Riggs Center’s “First Stockbridge Congress on Child Analysis” in 1950, we learn that many succeeded in finding professional fulfilment in exile, and some of them went on to have impressive careers.
Austen Riggs former Medical Director (1947-66) Robert Knight, MD, and émigré psychoanalysts Ernst and Marianne Kris played a key role in the organization of this congress and in the development of psychoanalysis in the United States. Later, the Kris’ son Anton O. Kris became an important figure in psychoanalysis, building bridges between psychoanalysts in Europe and the United States.
Director of the Erikson Institute Jane G. Tillman, PhD, states, “American psychoanalysis in the 20th century was considerably enriched and shaped by the émigré psychoanalysts from Central Europe and this exhibit tells the story of the concerted effort by psychoanalytic organizations around the world to aid in the lifesaving escape of Jewish psychoanalysts from Vienna as the Nazis invaded Austria.”
Beginning with a roundtable series and continuing in the exhibit, the collaboration looks at migration to the United States and the impact on the field of psychoanalysis and the larger world of mental health. By expanding this historical story to look at the experience of current immigrants, the exhibition and roundtable series will examine the commonalities and differences between then and now and what the two places, Vienna and Stockbridge, brought to those stories.