René Spitz: biography of this psychoanalyst

When we talk about a person with depression, we usually imagine a man or woman suffering a mood episode depressed and with little capacity to perceive pleasure and joy in what he does, hopelessness and probably some passivity and lack of desire to Do nothing. The image that has come to mind will probably be that of an adult or a teenager. But the truth is that there are also various types of depression in childhood.

One of the first authors to investigate them, and the creator of various concepts, was René Spitz. The life and work of this author is of great interest, which is why throughout this article let's see a little biography of René Spitz.

• Related article: "History of Psychology: main authors and theories"

Short biography of René Spitz

René Spitz, whose full name was René Árpád Spitz, came into the world on January 29, 1887. His birth occurred in the city of Vienna, being the eldest of two brothers sons of 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).

Despite being born in Vienna, the family moved to Budapest, where the young Spitz would grow up and begin to develop and train academically.

Training

Spitz would enter the University of that city, studying Medicine. Besides Budapest, he studied in other cities like Lausanne and Berlin. During these years he worked with professionals like Sandor Ferenczi and began to get acquainted with the work of Sigmund Freud He completed his studies in medicine during the year 1910. All this made something appear in Spitz of great interest with respect to the human psyche and psychoanalytic theory.

A year later (in 1911) and under the recommendation of Ferenczi, Spitz began to analyze himself for him in order to learn, and he ended up training in psychoanalytic psychology. He became a member of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society in 1926, a society from which he participated in various investigations. Later in 1930 he did the same in the German Psychoanalytic Society.

However two years later during 1932 he moved to the city of Paris, where he would act as professor of psychoanalysis at the École Normale Supérieure. Likewise, little by little, his interest would focus on infantile neurosis, beginning to focus his research on the development of 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.

Moving to America and working life on the continent

In 1939, during World War II, this important professional left Paris and went into exile to the United States at the risk to his life as he was of Hebrew descent. There he would serve as a professor at the City College of the City University of New York. Also, he made a film with his investigations that would see the light in 1952 and will also maintain a job as a professor of psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Later he moved to Denver, Colorado, where he would be hired as a professor at the University of Colorado. Beyond his tasks as a teacher, 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 he would discover one of his best-known concepts: anaclitic depression. He would also analyze the effects of abandonment and affective deprivation, as well as child development by analyzing object relationships. During this period he would conduct numerous studies regarding infantile neurosis and development from a psychoanalytic perspective and genetic psychology (seeking the veracity of the data within its model). He also made numerous graphic reports, such as the one produced in 1952: "Psychogenic Illness in Early Childhood".

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

• You may be interested: "Sigmund Freud: life and work of the famous psychoanalyst"

Some of his best known contributions

Among the most representative works and concepts of the author highlights the conception of analytic depression, which is defined by the presence of irritability, asthenia, dependence, anguish, sleeping and eating problems, isolation and little attachment and problems at the intellectual, communicative and motor levels. This symptomatology appears derived from the existence of a partial deprivation of affection during the first childhood, and specifically in the first eighteen months, in which the minor has not been able to have a closeness with Mother. His studies were carried out with children up to two years old.

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 separating from the rest, the phase of the precursor object in which it begins to be able to recognize the known Y finally the phase of real object in which a differentiation between mother and child begins to be understood and the anguish when it is gone, and in which anxiety and the ability to say no also appear.

We must also take into account the concept of hospitalism, which mainly refers to separation between mother and child for a prolonged period, in situations such as income hospitable.

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

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 especially known to the majority of the population, his legacy still endures: he was the first to assess the existence of psychiatric disorders in children, and specifically in showing interest, analyzing and evaluating the existence of depressive symptoms in minors. His works and those of Bowlby are complementary, helping to understand elements such as the attachment of minors. And the idea of ​​anaclitic depression and reactions like 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.

Bibliographic references:

• Emde, R. N. (1992). Individual meaning and increasing complexity: contributions of Sigmund Freud and Rene Spitz to developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology, 22 (3), 347-359.
• Spitz, R.A. (1946). Hospitalism; A follow-up report on investigation described in volume I, 1945. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 2, 113-117.