Philanthropic Boosters of American Psychoanalysis

Episodes of Two Coteries

Abstract

:  Monetary dividends derived from a pair of 19th-century philanthropic fortunes, centered in England and Germany, were harnessed to nourish American psychoanalysis.  Annie Winifred Ellerman (a/k/a ‘Bryher’) and Dr. Bettina Warburg were two beneficiaries whose familial largesse became instrumental in such advancement. An indirect beneficiary of the Ellerman family’s wealth was the European-born Dr. Hanns Sachs, a pioneering non-medically educated psychoanalyst and pre-World War II émigré to Boston. He became a co-founder of the psychoanalytically-oriented publication American Imago. Dr. M. Moore, one his analysands, was a celebrated American-born poet, consulting psychiatrist and confidant of several literary figures as well as their family members. The Broadway impresario Josh Logan was one of his ex-patients. Meanwhile, Dr. B. Warburg led Drs. B. D. Lewin and L. S. Kubie, in world-wide humanitarian efforts sponsored by the American Psychoanalytic Association in rescuing mainly displaced Jewish psychoanalysts fleeing Nazi occupied Europe. Funds flowing from the Joshua Logan Foundation were amongst the charitable contributions furthering the educational objectives of psychoanalysis in America. So too, were  royalty assignments emanating from professional publications of Dr. B. D. Moore amongst others.