Category Archives: Psychology

January 12

Alice Miller: Unravelling Childhood Trauma

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Alice Miller (née Alicija Englard) was born on the 12th of January 1923 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, into a Jewish family. She established herself in Switzerland in 1946, studying philosophy in Basel, then psychoanalysis in Zurich. Her book The Drama of the Gifted Child , initially published in 1979 in Frankfurt, caused a stir in 1981, becoming an […]

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January 05

Yves Tanguy: Decoding Surrealism

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On the 5th of January 1900, the French surrealist painter Yves Tanguy was born in Paris. The journey that led him to his eventual profession as a painter can be described as one worthy of any decent surrealist. In 1918, Tanguy started working for the merchant navy; he was then drafted into the Army, but […]

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December 04

Jeanne Manford: Parenting and Homosexuality

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On the 4th of December 1920, schoolteacher and gay rights activist Jeanne Sobelson Manford was born in Queens, N.Y. She was known as the co-founder of the support group organization Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). In October 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama remembered Manford’s role in the establishment of PFLAG in […]

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November 08

Art into Science in Rorschach’s Psychiatry

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On the 8th of November 1884, Swiss Freudian psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach was born in Zürich. He was famous for devising the inkblot test which he believed helped reflect unconscious parts of the subject’s personality as projected onto the visual stimuli. Following his art teacher father Ulrich, from an early age, Hermann found himself strongly drawn to painting […]

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October 30

Orson Welles: Media and Mass Hysteria

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On the 30th of October 1938, the U.S. radio network CBS broadcast an audio drama from the Mercury Theatre on the Air series adapted from English sci-fi writer H. G. Wells’ 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. This special Halloween edition was directed and narrated by a 23-year old Orson Welles, future Hollywood filmmaker. […]

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October 28

Controversy in Allegory: Masson and Courbet

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On the 28th of October 1987, the French Surrealist artist André Masson died at the respectable age of 91 in Paris. Important exponent of automatism in the visual arts, Masson worked in a manner equivalent to the literary ‘stream of consciousness’, allowing his hand free rein from conscious thought and premeditated composition. He was said […]

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September 16

Karen Horney: Beyond Feminine Psychology in

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On the 16th of September 1885, German, U.S. based Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney was born in Blankenese, near Hamburg, Germany. Her theories famously questioned some traditional Freudian views, especially on sexuality and the instinct orientation in psychoanalysis. She is credited with founding feminist psychology in response to Freud’s theory of penis envy, disagreeing with Freud about […]

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August 25

Françoise Dolto: Unconscious Body Image in Child Psychoanalysis

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On the 25th of August 1988, French paediatrician and psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto died in Paris, France. She is mainly known for her pioneering work in the field of child psychoanalysis and her contribution to the development of the ‘unconscious body image’ theory. She was born to a well-to-do Parisian family of engineers. Right from the start, […]

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August 10

Reality TV: The (Not So) Candid Camera

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On the 10th of August 1948, Candid Camera, an American hidden camera/practical joke reality series created and produced by Allen Funt was aired on television. It initially began on radio as The Candid Microphone and after a series of theatrical film shorts, the format was adopted to the screen where it ran successfully until May 2004. A 1969 article records how, “Since its inception […]

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July 26

George Grosz: War→Madness→Dada

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On the 26th of July 1893, German artist George Grosz was born in Berlin. From an early age, Grosz had passionate ideological views. In January 1919, he was arrested during the Spartakus uprising in Berlin, a general strike accompanied by armed battles, which was being suppressed by the Weimar government, marking the end of the […]

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