The Great War and the Fifth International Psychoanalytic Congress in Budapest: Psychoanalysis in the 1910s

Abstract

Objective/Context: This article studies psychoanalysis in the 1910s and aims to understand the impacts of the Great War and soldiers’ neurosis on the psychoanalytic movement and knowledge through the Fifth International Psychoanalytic Congress in 1918 in Budapest. Methodology: In dialogue with cultural studies on the Great War and intellectual history, this paper investigates psychoanalytical spaces of sociability, such as the International Psychoanalytical Association and its congresses. Originality: A thorough historiographical review reveals few detailed publications on the Budapest Congress itself. This article fills the gap by synthesizing prior findings about the congress, connecting the historiographies of psychoanalysis and World War I. Conclusions: The congress in Budapest was a milestone for psychoanalysis, considering the first governmental recognition of psychoanalytical treatment, theoretical changes produced by war neurosis, and institutional modifications in the International Psychoanalytical Association, such as the expansion and democratization of psychoanalytical treatment.

Keywords

• world war i
• intellectual history
• scientific congresses
• war neurosis
• psychoanalysis