ABSTRACT
This chapter explains Tamara Dembo's early work on anger as a dynamic phenomenon. It discusses Kurt Lewin's exploration into the constructs of development, regression, and retrogression founded on a hierarchical whole-part analysis derived from the Gestalt School, especially Kurt Koffka's idea of the "executive" and Kurt Goldstein's organismic approach. According to the Greek myth, Scylla and Charybdis were monsters lurking at the opposite margins of a strait through which only the boldest adventurers tried to navigate–often unsuccessfully. This image was used to characterize the task of the researcher at a conference held at Clark University on the relationship between rehabilitation and psychology. Eugenia Hanfmann, also from Berlin, worked with her on issues of perception and emotion. In 1932 Dembo and Hanfmann both obtained positions as research associates at Worcester State Hospital, also in Massachusetts, then a bustling research institution for the study of schizophrenia, under David Shakow.
