Presentation and Article by Ruth Lijtmaer (USA)

Marie Langer, Her Life and Work

In panel: “Liberation Psychology and Psychoanalysis as Social Revolution: The Clinical and Community Contributions of Marie Langer.” International Psychohistorical Association Conference: The Intersection of Psychology and History: The Contributions of Michael Eigen to Human Understanding. New York, NY, May 2019.

In this paper, Lijtmaer describes the life and work of Dr. Marie Langer (1910-1987). Leaving her native Vienna in 1936, Langer experienced multiple migrations and exiles to Spain, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico and back to Argentina, where she died. She was the founder of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Society. She followed Klein, Bion and the British School. Among the issues she addressed were: female sexuality, sterility, rationales for war, group psychoanalysis, social issues, anti-Semitism, methodological problems related to how psychoanalysis is taught, and some technical problems raised by training analysis.

Response to Peter Petschauer’s Paper: “The Flame of Trauma”

(2019). Clio’s Psyche, 25(3), 246-249.

In his heartfelt article, Petschauer explores the trauma caused by a totalitarian ideology curtailing the human rights of seven individuals during the Holocaust. Lijtmaer comments how after shared massive trauma, some transgenerational transmission of its images occurs, becoming intertwined with the core identity and self-representation of each member of subsequent generations. An individual traumatized deliberately by others has the tendency to “remain in the basement.” The sense of shame, humiliation, guilt and helplessness may become internalized, complicating survivors’ individual fates.

Ruth Lijtmaer, PhD
88 West Ridgewood Ave.
Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
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