Biographical data and selected conceptual influences of Wolfgang Luthe: How catharsis of physical and emotional tension symptoms found its way into autogenic training and autogenic therapy

Abstract: The physician Dr. Wolfgang Luthe (1922-1985) has significantly influenced the international understanding of Autogenic Training (AT), but his life in Germany before his emigration to Canada has so far hardly been investigated. Therefore, his participation and experiences in World War II or his membership in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) for instance are more or less unknown. Also, the organization of his medical studies or when and how exactly he came into contact with AT or its founder Johannes Heinrich Schultz. It is known that Schultz promoted Luthe with regard to AT and especially its international dissemination from the late 1950s on. What has received less attention is that there were some important practical and conceptual differences in this process, which will be addressed in this article as well as the aforementioned topics. Subsequently, the approaches developed by Luthe such as autogenic abreaction, verbalization and neutralization or additional cathartic exercises as well as his concept of autogenic therapy are briefly outlined, which are quite widespread internationally, but often little known in German-speaking countries. Finally, audio recordings are presented in which Luthe himself illustrates some of the previously described aspects.

Keywords: History, autogenic training, biography of Wolfgang Luthe, Nazi era, international dissemination of AT, autogenic abreaction, autogenic neutralization, autogenic therapy, autogenics

published in: Entspannungsverfahren 2023 (Ed. Deutschen Gesellschaft für Entspannungsverfahren); Lengerich: Pabst Sc. Publ., Vol. 40, pp. e36-e71