ABSTRACT
Eugen Bleuler’s school in Zurich was more psychologically oriented, but Emil Kraepelin had been recommended to Helene Deutsch by Wagner-Jauregg. Kraepelin was already famous for his classification and descriptions of mental illness. Pre-Freudian psychiatry is often underrated. R. D. Laing, for example, has taken one of Kraepelin’s textbook illustrations in order to show how the patient could be understood as making subtle fun of even one of the greatest of old-fashioned psychiatrists. Kraepelin, whom Helene later said S. Freud regarded as a “coarse fellow,” had been professor of clinical psychiatry at Munich since 1903; his textbook first came out in 1883, so that by the turn of the century he was one of the most famous authorities in his field. Kraepelin’s interest in psychopharmacology, the effects of various drugs on the brain, led to the devising of different tests of mental functions. Equally disturbing was the expected loss of support of Kraepelin’s daughter, who had been providing Helene with cases.
