ABSTRACT
The establishment of the German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy in 1936 marked the true beginning of the rather exceptional process of professionalization that psychotherapists experienced in the Third Reich. While the German General Medical Society remained a "purely scientific" organization without any legal professional capacities, the Matthias Heinrich Goring Institute constituted an entity that put professional meat on the bones of a scientific society. The Goring Institute is significant as an example of the process of professionalization in modern Germany to and through the Third Reich. One model of professionalization has been applied to professions under fascist governance. This model for professions under fascism, while partly accurate, is an ideal type which does not take account either of the traditional role of the state in professionalization in Germany or the complexities of state and society in the Third Reich.
