Psychotherapy in the Third Reich: The Göring Institute

In Psychotherapy in the Third Reich, Geoffrey Cocks focuses on a curious phenomenon which has heretofore escaped notice: even at the zenith of Nazi persecution, the profession of psychotherapy achieved an institutional status and capacity for practice unrivaled in Germany before or since.

This book shows how, despite professional disruptions and moral derelictions of life under Hitler, German psychotherapists turned peril into opportunity. The man chiefly responsible for fostering the practice of psychotherapy was Matthias Heinrich Goring, a cousin of Nazi leader Hermann Goring. Under the protection of the Goring name, a full-fledged institute was established in Berlin, funded by the German Labor Front, the Luftwaffe, and the Reich Research Council.

In addition to examining the conditions that allows psychotherapy to flourish during this period, Cocks treats broader issues, such as what a society's treatment of mental illness says about the culture as a whole, and why psychoanalysis was seen as "Jewish" and a threat to the state, while psychotherapy received the support of Hitler's regime.

"A well-researched, fully documented study, rich in dark, implicit ironics."--Kirkus Reviews

"Well-written and researched...[a] frighteningly convincing and controversial study."--Boston Sunday Globe