ABSTRACT
The primacy of the role of medical-psychiatric researcher may indeed be the deeply imbedded knot that fastens the threads in the complex weave of his life's activities and of his personality. The psychoanalytic physician tries to liberate the misdirected or imprisoned energies of the psyche, to make them available to the patient. Mitscherlich's work serves in this sense as a supporting example, and it is within this context that people should recognize the reason for and the significance of his selection as the Peace Prize laureate of 1969. The creative capacity, says Mitscherlich, which man must mobilize if he is to achieve a viable adjustment to a new social environment, will be available to him only if he has acquired in early life the nucleus of a firm yet resilient psychic structure. Mitscherlich's contributions to medical-psychiatric research and social psychology have been substantial.
