HUNDRED YEARS OF THE PSYCHOANALYTIC PROGRESSIVE MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT.

Abstract

Beginning in 1920 and in keeping with Freud's sustained encouragement, the first two generations of European psychoanalysts initiated a progressive mental health movement by offering very low cost and free psychoanalytic services that were in harmony with Austrian social democratic and socialist political leaders' commitment to societal reforms in light of the economic and social inequities after the First World War. This synthesis of biographical and autobiographical accounts of early Freudian, Ego Psychology and Neo-Freudian theorists' contributions highlights their consideration of the effects of social injustice as central challenges to the development of psychological growth.