Otto Gross’s name is unknown to many, and this has an obvious explanation: for a long time an attempt was made to erase his existence, he was at the heart of the classical psychoanalytic movement and shook the foundations of this current with his life and ideas.
Although it was very productive and resulted in a significant number of articles, they were systematically hidden or minimized.
- Otto Gross can be considered a precursor to antipsychiatry.
- Silvia Tendlarz.
- Specialist in Gross’ life and work.
- Defined him as “the first psychotic in analysis”.
- To many of his contemporaries.
- He was mentally ill.
However, he has his own work that influenced the Dadaist movement and certainly advanced to his time in many respects.
Artist and bohemian, anarchist by conviction, as well as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, he co-founded the utopian community of Ascona, which could be considered the first hippie community in history.
Spiritual, funny, addicted to cocaine and morphine, feminist and radical defender of freedom, she baffled and surprised those who knew him.
“We believe that the only real revolution will be one that will unite women, freedom and spirit. “Otto Gross?
Otto Gross was born in Austria on March 17, 1877, little is known about his childhood and upbringing, which is known to be the only son of Hans Gross, considered one of the pioneers of modern criminology.
At first, Otto loved his father very much, but eventually distanced himself from him and rejected deterministic ideas of his theories.
This rejection of his father and the libertarian attitude that began to define him from a very young age led him to be one of Franz Kafka’s closest friends, in fact, the two dreamed of making a newspaper against patriarchy, many of the ideas that join have been registered in the? Letter to Kafka’s Father.
Many say Otto Gross not only studied schizophrenia, but did. His life was an accumulation of contrasting experiences. He traveled to South America, served as a doctor on a ship and was part of a Hungarian regiment during the war.
He also loved art and moved like a fish in the water between expressionist circles. He was also an assistant to Kraepelin, considered the father of psychiatry. Gross wanted to file a complaint against him for not knowing psychoanalysis.
For many, Otto Gross is one of the great figures of anarchism, along with Bakunin and Kropotkin, had a real displeasure with the systems of power and rules that restricted freedom.
He became addicted from an early age, but also underwent several detox therapies, and in reference to these therapies, a particularly interesting episode occurred.
Gross went to Burgelzli to detox. The application for admission to this place was signed by Sigmund Freud, however, the father of psychoanalysis never wanted to cure him.
Then he entrusted this task to Carl Jung, warning him to just work on his addiction, and nothing else. Jung ignored the warning and decided to psychoanalyze it.
Then they began a series of sessions, one of which lasted 24 hours, after this unusual session Jung claimed that he had been psychoanalysized by Gross, in fact, in a more or less psychotic episode, Jung went so far as to say that he was a “twin brother”. Gross.
After that, he developed an aversion to Otto, who himself escaped the discipline of internment.
Otto Gross was unrthodox in the treatment of his patients, often the women he served ended up being his lovers, they say he tested with his patients in decadent bars.
He also helped two of his patients die because he believed in euthanasia and assisted suicide.
She was also a tireless feminist and respected homosexuality. In the utopian community of Ascona promoted absolute freedom, the total absence of standards. This has led many people to regard experience as an outrageous practice. Many of Gross’ friends and colleagues repudiated him.
Psychoanalysis condemned him to ostracism. They erased their name from the official history of this movement, although many, including Freud himself, saw great contributions in their texts.
Otto Gross was accused of negligence and declared insansent, which has led to gradual isolation. He died of hunger and cold on a street in Berlin at the age of 43, however, artists have saved his work and memory.