The Life and Times of Franz Alexander: From Budapest to California

189 Pages·2015·1.53 MB·English

by  Ilonka Venier Alexander

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FRANZ
ALEXANDER
The History of Psychoanalysis Series
Professor Brett Kahr and Professor Peter L. Rudnytsky (Series Editors)
Published and distributed by Karnac Books
Other titles in the Series
Her Hour Come Round at Last: A Garland for Nina Coltart
edited by Peter L. Rudnytsky and Gillian Preston
Rescuing Psychoanalysis from Freud and Other Essays in Re-Vision
by Peter L. Rudnytsky
Ferenczi and His World: Rekindling the Spirit of the Budapest School
edited by Judit Szekacs-Weisz and Tom Keve
Freud in Zion: Psychoanalysis and the Making of Modern Jewish Identity
by Eran J. Rolnik
Ferenczi for Our Time: Theory and Practice
edited by Judit Szekacs-Weisz and Tom Keve
The Clinic and the Context: Historical Essays
by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Sandor Ferenczi–Ernest Jones: Letters 1911–1933
edited by Ferenc Eros, Judit Szekacs-Weisz, and Ken Robinson
The Milan Seminar: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory
by John Bowlby, edited by Marco Bacciagaluppi
Ferenczi and Beyond: Exile of the Budapest School and Solidarity in the
Psychoanalytic Movement during the Nazi Years
by Judit Mészáros
Looking Through Freud’s Photos
by Michael Molnar
Psychoanalytic Filiations: Mapping The Psychoanalytic Movement
by Ernst Falzeder
The Abandonment Neurosis
by Germaine Guex (tr. Peter Douglas)
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
FRANZ ALEXANDER
From Budapest to California
Ilonka Venier Alexander
First published in 2015 by
Karnac Books Ltd
118 Finchley Road
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 2015 by Ilonka Venier Alexander
The right of Ilonka Venier Alexander to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-250-9
Typeset by V Publishing Solutions Pvt Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain
www.karnacbooks.com
To my good friend Julia Gunn
and Broessler cousins around the World

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR xi
SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD xiii
PREFACE xxix
CHAPTER ONE
A journey to the past 1
CHAPTER TWO
Life at the Palace 5
CHAPTER THREE
The Great War and meeting nobility 23
CHAPTER FOUR
The Alexander children in the twentieth century 35
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER FIVE
Berlin: setting the stage for Chicago 63
(with a brief stopover in Boston)
CHAPTER SIX
Chicago and the time of his life 87
CHAPTER SEVEN
Moving west, one last time 107
CHAPTER EIGHT
My grandfather and me 121
EPILOGUE
The family today 137
AFTERWORD 139
Dr. Carl Bell
REFERENCES 147
INDEX 151
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Sandra Phinney, my friend and literary mentor, for her
long and persistent encouragement and guidance in the process of writ-
ing this book. She never lost faith in the product nor in my ability to get
it done.
Once again, I thank my long-time friend, travelling companion, and
confidante, Julia Gunn, for her friendship, love, and desire that I find
family. Without her, this book and the coming together of family would
not have been possible.
I am especially grateful to my literary agent, Arnold Gosewich, for
his willingness to take a chance on me, an unknown, when he saw my
passion for this work.
This book would not have been possible without the assistance of the
staff and members of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, and the
Boston and New York Institutes as well as the American Psychoanalytic
Association. Their support and willingness to collaborate during the
writing process was immeasurable.
To those, too many to mention, who were part of the research process,
either on the phone, in person, or through the internet, a huge thank
you. Your participation in this worldwide gathering of information was
ix