Lecture to Address Reasons for Freud and Jung’s Estrangement

The fifth annual Karl Stern Lecture will address the frayed relationship between two founders of psychoanalysis—Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung—and the role anti-Semitism may have played in their estrangement.

Associate Psychology Professor Dr. Daniel Burston will present Judaism, Nazism and Anti-Semitism in Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud Friday, Oct. 4, from 3-5 p.m. in the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center on the first floor of Gumberg Library.

Freud and Jung were collaborators and friends in the early 20^th century. However, tensions erupted in 1910 when the two began to develop differing theories of the unconscious. As the years passed, Jung became more vocal in his criticism of Freud and of “Jewish psychology,” leading Freud and his followers to accuse Jung of anti-Semitism. In his lecture, Burston will evaluate the available evidence to help understand Jung’s relationship to Jews and to Nazism.

“This lecture comes at an important time, given the resurgence of anti-Semitism in contemporary Europe and the United States,” Burston, who is Jewish, said. “This lecture will address the intersections of psychology, religion and social issues while touching on past and present implications of far-right ideology.”

The lecture series honors Stern—the late German-Canadian neurologist and psychiatrist, who was a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Gumberg Library houses a collection of Stern’s works in its archives.

The lecture is sponsored by the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Gumberg Library and the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts.

For more information, email Burston at burston@duq.edu.