The professional biography of Prof. Dr. Johannes Heinrich Schultz 1905-1970 in a historical context. The light and dark sides of psychotherapeutic professionalisation and development of autogenic training through the lens of German history.

Abstract: Most people know Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h.c. Johannes Heinrich Schultz as the founder of Autogenic Training (AT), which he developed from Clinical Hypnosis in the 1920s. His contribution to the professionalisation of ‘mental health’ respectively psychotherapy in German-speaking countries from the beginning of the 20th century through to the late 1960s, however, is lesser known, yet still bears relevance today. Being personally involved in the establishment of psychotherapy as a treatment form, Schutz not only shaped the history of psychotherapy but changed society’s attitude towards it. He continued his psychotherapeutic work throughout the German imperial era with its authoritarian structures, the First World War and its atrocities, as well as the Weimar Republic with its riots and rebellions. He also greatly influenced and shaped the so-called new German psychotherapy (sog. neue Deutsche Seelenheilkunde) under the fascist dictum ‘heal or destroy’ during the Nazi era and the deafening silence over the continuations of various practices in the post-war era. Presumably, there are few psychotherapists known in German-speaking countries, at the time, whose professional biographies show the complex relationship between socio-political and professional developments in such an exemplary way. In order to give an overview, both the light and dark sides of important developments in psychotherapy and their integration in German contemporary history, including the Nazi period, will be exemplarily illustrated at selected stages of Schultz’s professional life.

in: Entspannungsverfahren 2018 (hrsg. von der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Entspannungsverfahren, DG-E); Lengerich: Pabst Sc. Publ., No. 35, p. e88-e125