René Spitz: biography of this psychoanalyst

This researcher focused on the relationship between mothers and children during childhood.

When we speak of a person with depression, we usually imagine a man or woman suffering from an episode of depressed mood and with little ability to perceive pleasure and joy in what he or she does, hopelessness and probably some passivity and lack of desire to do anything. The image that has come to our mind will probably be that of an adult or adolescent. But the truth is that there are also different types of childhood depression.

One of the first authors to investigate them, and creator of several concepts, was René Spitz. The life and work of this author is of great interest, which is why throughout this article we are going to see a short biography of this author. we are going to see a short biography of René Spitz..

Brief biography of René Spitz

René Spitz, whose full name was René Árpád Spitz, was born on January 29, 1887. His birth took place in the city of ViennaHe was the eldest of two children born to Árpád Spitz and Ernestine Antoinette Spitz. He was part of an important and economically influential family from Hungary and of Jewish origin. He also had a younger sister, Desirée Spitz (later Bródy).

Although born in Vienna, the family moved to Budapest, where the young Spitz grew up and began to develop and train academically.

Education

Spitz would enter the University of that city, studying medicine. In addition to Budapest, he studied in other cities such as Lausanne and Berlin. During these years he worked with professionals such as Sandor Ferenczi and began to familiarize himself with the work of Sigmund Freud. He completed his medical studies in 1910. All this made something that appeared in Spitz a great interest regarding the human psyche and psychoanalytic theory.

A year later (in 1911) and under Ferenczi's recommendation, Spitz would begin to be analyzed by him in order to learn, and ended up training in psychoanalytic psychology. He became a member of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society in 1926, a society from which he participated in several investigations. Later in 1930 he became a member of the German Psychoanalytic Society.

However, two years later, in 1932, he moved to Paris he moved to the city of Paris, where he became a professor of psychoanalysis at the École Normale Supérieure.. Also little by little his interest would be centered in infantile neurosis, beginning to focus his investigations in the development of the minors from 1935.

But there came a time when Nazism rose to power and a large number of people had to emigrate in order to avoid the war, including Spitz.

Relocation to America and working life on the continent

In 1939, during the Second World War, this important professional left Paris and went into exile in the United States due to the risk to his life as he was of Hebrew descent. There he became a professor at the City College of the City University of New York. He also made a film of his research that would be released in 1952 and also held a job as a professor of psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital.

He later moved to Denver, Colorado, where he was hired as a professor at the University of Colorado. In addition to his teaching duties, in this period of his life he would begin to focus more and more on mother-child dyad relationships. and it would be during this vital period that he would begin to work with orphaned children.

And it would be with them that she would discover one of her best known concepts: anaclitic depression. She would also analyze the effects of abandonment and affective deprivation, as well as child development by analyzing object relations. During this period he would carry out numerous studies regarding infantile neurosis and development from a psychoanalytic and genetic psychology perspective (looking for the veracity of the data within his model). He also made numerous graphic reports, such as the one produced in 1952: "Psychogenic Disease in Early Childhood".

In 1945 he would begin to publish in the magazine "The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child", and a year later one of his great works would be published in which he explained the concept of anaclitic depression: the book Anaclitic Depression, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Over the years he published a large number of publications and works, in addition to continuing to teach at the university. Finally was appointed president of the Denver Psychoanalytic Society in 1962, a position he held until a year later.in which he remained until a year later.

Some of his best-known contributions

Among the author's most representative works and concepts, the following stand out the conception of analytical depression stands out.which is defined by the presence of irritability, asthenia, dependence, anguish, sleeping and eating problems, isolation and poor attachment, and intellectual, communicative and motor problems. This symptomatology appears derived from the existence of a partial deprivation of affection during early childhood, and specifically in the first eighteen months, in which the child has not been able to be close to the mother. His studies were carried out with children up to two years of age.

Within this concept and further elaborating his theory, he established the existence of three stages throughout this type of depression: the pre-object phase, in which the smile appears as an organizational mechanism and there is no possibility of distinguishing between objects or of separating from the rest, the precursor object phase in which the child begins to be able to recognize what is known, and finally the phase of the real object in which a differentiation between mother and child begins to be understood and the anguish when the mother leaves the child, and in which also appears the anxiety of the mother and the child.and in which anguish and the ability to say no also appear.

It is also necessary to take into account the concept of hospitalism, which mainly refers to the separation between mother and child for a prolonged period of time, in situations such as hospitalization.

His observations led him to consider that the bond with the mother is the origin of and marks the whole of social relations.. He also worked on aspects such as the acquisition of identity. Another well-known concept of this author is that of marasmus, which refers to the emergence of pathology in children with deprivation of affection, which can generate a state of great loss of weight and appetite and which in many cases can lead to the death of the child.

Death and legacy

The death of this author occurred on September 11, 1974, in the city of Denver, at the age of 88.

Although he is not an author particularly well known by the majority of the population, his legacy still endures: he was the first to assess the existence of psychiatric-type psychiatric disorders in children.specifically in showing interest, analyzing and assessing the existence of depressive symptoms in children. His work and Bowlby's are complementary, helping to understand elements such as attachment in children. And the idea of anaclitic depression and reactions such as hospitalism and marasmus are an important contribution to science. In this sense, he also incorporates a certain rigor in the handling of information, obtained through processes more based on observation and less abstract than other psychoanalysts.