author

Ernst Simmel

1882–1947

A pioneering psychoanalyst, he helped shape early thinking about war trauma and built one of the first institutions to offer psychoanalytic treatment in a clinical setting. After fleeing Nazi Germany, he went on to play an important part in the growth of psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.

1 Audiobook

Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses

Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses

by Sándor Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, Ernst Simmel

About the author

Born in Breslau on April 4, 1882, and later dying in Los Angeles on November 11, 1947, Ernst Simmel was a German neurologist and psychoanalyst known for linking psychoanalytic ideas to severe psychological suffering. Accounts of his life consistently describe him as an important early thinker on war neuroses, drawing on his experience treating traumatized soldiers during and after World War I.

He is especially remembered for founding Schloss Tegel near Berlin in 1927, widely described as the first psychoanalytic clinic or sanatorium of its kind. His work there reflected a practical side of psychoanalysis: not just theory, but organized care for people with serious mental illness and social hardship.

After leaving Germany in the 1930s to escape the Nazi regime, he spent a short time in Topeka before settling in Los Angeles. There, he became a founding figure in the circle that later developed into the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, extending his influence from Europe to the United States.