Margarete Mitscherlich - Grande Dame of German psychoanalysis
The new ChroniquesDuVasteMonde book
In the new ChroniquesDuVasteMonde book - "An Indomitable Woman, Margarete Mitscherlich in Conversation with Kathrin Tsainis and Monika Held" - the grande dame of German psychoanalysis speaks about her youth in the Third Reich, her great love for Alexander Mitscherlich, life as a working mother , about her career and getting older. It spans the gap between personal experience and contemporary history and answers questions that move us all: what is the secret of good relationships? How can we raise children to upright people? And how do we find the courage to stand by ourselves and master the crises in our lives?
Read an excerpt from the book here:
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Dr. med. Mitscherlich, did you even wonder if you are a good mother?
Margarete Mitscherlich: I thought that I was a good mother. I have always loved my son, I strive to understand him and to put into practice everything that I have learned about education and togetherness. From today's point of view, I was not a good mother when I gave him away in his barely two years. I used to say, "You just were not strong enough," but when I look back, I still do not know how to do it differently. It was not a question of love, it was never in question, but I lacked the strength to care for my son as well as my job as my mother could in Denmark. I had to see that I could somehow establish myself. The certainty that I would marry, I did not have. If I could live my life again, I would not give it away. But if that would have been better for him, I do not know. I will never know.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Your son came back to you at the age of six, after you and Alexander Mitscherlich got married. Did he ever accuse you of separation?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Of course. Even so, he realized that I had to fight a lot to get my way and earn money.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Was there any thought of getting a bit shorter at work?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Before I got married, the question did not arise. Later, I enjoyed life with him as well as I possibly could. I have kept many afternoons off. However, in the evening I often had seminars, which I also liked to hold. When the Sigmund Freud Institute was inaugurated in 1960 and Alexander went to Frankfurt, I stayed in Heidelberg until my son graduated from high school. I did not want to leave him again. I went there twice a week to work there and my husband commuted.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: When a mother likes to work, she is quickly considered a mother of a raven.
Margarete Mitscherlich: An absolutely German term that you will not hear anywhere else. This belief that a mother is only there for her child, that she harms him when she works, is a thoroughly German idea. Do not wear the shoe! The stupid thing about us women is that we accept everything, instead of saying, "nonsense! I'll do it the way I think fit! If I want a child, I'll get it, if not, then not get one, damn it, there are ways to accommodate it, so I can work! " Take a look around the world and realize that this is only the case in Germany, and defend yourself against this idiotic guilt by thinking and arguing. Children do not go bankrupt if they go to crèches. They tend to suffer if their mothers can not say no and feel eternally guilty.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Unfortunately, one does not get rid of feelings of guilt so easily.
Margarete Mitscherlich: That's probably true, but women have to understand that their feelings of guilt are socially justified. Think of the nobility in the past, the wealthy citizens: it was commonplace to pass on children to nurses and governesses, and the women did not feel bad about it, because it accepted the society. Today something different is common and these ideas have been adopted by women without thinking about them. Do not accept that as truth! You have to fight for institutions that allow mothers to work. This benefits the whole society.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: At no time have there been more educational counselors than today, and yet many parents are completely unsure.
Margarete Mitscherlich: Everyone has been educated, through his parents' home, the school, through the society in which he lives, he has personally experienced how to do that and either accepted or rejected these norms. With the books then come new ideas. Only use ideas or advice nothing if they are not thought out. You have to deal with them, question them, compare them with the personal experience and come to your own conclusions, otherwise it will remain theory, read stuff, and with that you never actually get very far. If you want to convey something to a child, you must have internalized it yourself and find your own words for it. My son always noticed right away when I became too theoretical and did not really have anything to do with him. And the same way a child feels whether one is actually facing or just having read that it is important to be that way.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Still, it would be nice if someone could tell you, "Do that and that, then your child will neither be a school failor nor a drug addict."
Margarete Mitscherlich: Nobody can do that. There is no universally applicable prescription, analysts understand that completely, we also say that to our patients. We can listen, talk to them, observe how they behave, and try to make certain things visible, but we can not overturn anyone completely. When you experience families together, you often see right away what's wrong. But putting it into words that someone can understand and accept is very difficult. It's not just about what mother and father say or do, even the tone of voice plays a big role, body language, facial expressions, whether they may perceive something again and again that was neither said nor meant. Even parents are driven by their prejudices, unconscious motives, injuries and fantasies. Could you drive it all from one moment to the next, you would be a miracle doctor. This requires a lot of conversation, it has to be felt how these interactions take place. This does not happen overnight or by reading any code of conduct in magazines or books.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Something can give food for thought.
Margarete Mitscherlich: Absolutely, but you have to understand first of all. To understand yourself and develop the ability to see yourself from outside, to understand how much you are projecting into your child. Children feel these projections, respond to them, while parents often do not even understand why their child behaves, what their share of it.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: How was that with you? Have you always understood your son?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Maybe even too much. Sometimes I thought he was telling me too much about what's going on in him. From a certain age, you also have to keep things to yourself to become independent.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Did you have a clear guideline, a principle in his education?
Margarete Mitscherlich: There is a Danish saying that I always liked very much: "Do not swallow anything raw." That was my motto and that, in my view, is the basis for good education. It has to be thought-provoking and never be constrained. Constantly speaking only prohibitions and instructions uses nothing. A child must be able to develop his own understanding, and that's only possible by teaching him to think for himself. By telling him how to find certain things, explain his own attitude and also make connections clear.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Did your husband share this view? In the fifties, one rather cultivated the "Do not object!" Style.
Margarete Mitscherlich: We had the same views regarding human values and togetherness, and of course we wanted to pass that on to our son as well.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Namely?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Tolerance, empathy with fellow human beings, unbiased thinking and acting, the ability to criticize oneself and others, these things.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: How did you convey that?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Of course we also talked to him about it, the older he got older, and when he was younger, there were certainly situations where the language came up. When children develop this phase, in which they occasionally torment animals or annoy smaller ones who can not defend themselves, I reacted very sensitively. I have always hated when people attack the weaker, and a child realizes whether what you say matches your inner attitude. Not only can you preach empathy, you also have to be self-empathic, otherwise nothing matters. The way one interacts with one another, and the atmosphere in the home, is far more important than any ultimately empty moral message.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: What do you think about the "Alliance for Education", initiated by the Family Minister von der Leyen and intended to teach children Christian values?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Sensitizing people for values is not a bad thing - as long as these values are also viewed critically, one can be rational and not blindly believe. You have to think about it, ask yourself why you are good, how to apply it. Complacency-free acceptance does not help at all, because at the next opportunity you just swallow something else just as unreflected. You know, ultimately, "value" is a Wischiwaschi word, in which you can stuff everything. Hitler, too, had values that were catastrophic, as we know, and the people quickly adopted them. Within twelve years, they had succeeded in turning a civilized people into primitive barbarians who simply killed Jewish people. Values can be shifted so quickly. You should never forget that.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: You have always emphasized that male and female characteristics are not innate, natural, but the result of socialization. How can we educate children beyond traditional role models?
Margarete Mitscherlich: You can not do that completely. The children also go to kindergarten, to school, they are part of a society that is characterized by traditions, role models, values, religion, even a culture and a zeitgeist. You can not cut off a child from it. Everyone is a social being, and everyone has to somehow integrate into this society.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: So we can not get out of the role patterns if society does not change?
Margarete Mitscherlich: It's changing! Slower in Germany than elsewhere, yes, but here too it is changing. It is more liberal and women have more to say. That's all right, but men and women are, thank God, also different. And of course, as a woman in the sense of the physical, one can understand a daughter better. I do not know what it's like to have a male body. But I know how breasts feel. Freud has not wrongly said that the ego is above all a body-self. No, no, girls must be girls and boys just boys. Forcing boys to play with dolls is nonsense! Women should not be just like men or vice versa, that does not work anyway. You have to get there that one gender is not disadvantaged, and I think we're on the right track after all.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Psychoanalysis is repeatedly accused of taking people out of responsibility by focusing too much on the imprint of their parents. How do you see that?
Margarete Mitscherlich: This early coinage takes place! The superego, that is, what is called conscience, arises only through the internalization of commandments and prohibitions of the parents. What they give us consciously or unconsciously has a great impact on our behavior, our choices, the way we feel, how we see ourselves and the world. Whereby even siblings experience their parents in very different ways: the real behavior is one thing, the child's imagination, as interpreted by mother and father, the other. If you want to understand a person, you have to deal with these imprints. Not to shirk responsibility, but to give someone the opportunity to see what works in them, how to learn to differentiate them from inner reality. Only when he knows that, can he make realistic judgments and get rid of projections. In this sense, psychoanalysis is a way to finally grow up and give up this childhood, in which only the parents are responsible and remain responsible for their own well-being until the end of life.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: And how much can you, as an adult, get rid of the baggage that you've gotten?
Margarete Mitscherlich: Very much, if you try. But education is not only ballast, but quite a big win. Education also means culture and differentiated treatment of people with each other.
Short bio
Margarete Mitscherlich as a high school graduate (left), with her son Matthias (center) and with Alexander Mitscherlich
The doctor, psychoanalyst, feminist and author Margarete Mitscherlich comes in 1917 as the daughter of a Danish doctor and a German teacher in Denmark to the world. She spends her high school and study time in Germany, where she is repeatedly reported because of her Nazi critical stance. In 1947 she meets the physician and psychoanalyst Alexander Mitscherlich: the beginning of an intimate and difficult relationship - Mitscherlich is married and the father of five children. 1949 the common son Matthias is born. It was not until 1955 that the couple, who worked closely together in their work, got married. They campaigned for the return of psychoanalysis under Hitler's rule, founded the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt and in 1967 published the bestseller "The inability to mourn", which became the standard work of the dispute becomes with the national socialism.Margarete Mitscherlich has been committed to equal rights since the 1970s and is considered an icon of the German women's movement, not least through her books "The Peaceful Woman" and "On the Effort of Emancipation". She lives in Frankfurt am Main, has four grandchildren and still works as a psychoanalyst.
Order book
The ChroniquesDuVasteMonde book "An Indomitable Woman" has 250 pp, costs 19.95 euros and has been published by Diana Verlag.
