Mike Palij drew attention to the analysis of Hitler by Henry Murray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_the_Personality_of_Adolph_Hitler
I recall from perusing the analysis some years ago that it was Freudian based. This is confirmed from this part of the report: American psychiatry was in the middle of its period of infatuation with Freud at this time (1943), as can be seen from pp. 8-10. Freud's "Counteractive Pattern" is explained by the hypothesis that "as a boy Hitler was severely shocked... by witnessing sexual intercourse between his parents". http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Donovan/Hitler/upload/Hitler-Section1.pdf This notion, widely held beyond psychoanalytic circles in those days, was thought to be based on solid evidence that Freud had acquired from his clinical cases. In fact it comes entirely from the Wolf Man case history, specifically Freud's ludicrous analytic interpretation of the patient's dream of some wolves (actually dogs, as the Wolf Man later revealed -- Freud made them wolves so he could bring in folklore in the analysis) sitting in a tree. Using interpretations that have to be read to appreciate their full absurdity (see my *Seductive Mirage*, pp. 68-69), Freud arrived at the conclusion that the dream was a disguised unconscious memory of the infant Wolf Man witnessing his parents engaging in sexual intercourse. Such was Freud's reputation that this absurdity became received 'knowledge' well beyond the world of psychoanalysis. That said, there are plenty of sensible ideas scattered in Murray's report. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org ---------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Palij <m...@nyu.edu> Subject: re: Famous people who have taken a (credible) personality test Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:22:00 -0400 On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 06:01:29 -0700, Michael Britt wrote: >I'm putting together an idea for a research study but there's one piece that >I'm not sure how to obtain: does anyone know of a well known person who has >taken a personality test (perhaps the MMPI) and the results of the test are >obtainable? The person could be dead or alive. Could be a writer, politician, >actor, etc. I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but after World War II a number of prominent Nazis were tested psychologically to determine what sort of psychopathology they suffered from. Back in March 2009, the APA Monitor had a short article on this which can be read here: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/03/nazi.aspx At the end of the article is mention of the book "The Quest for the Nazi Personality" by Zillmer et al. Portions of which can be read at books.google.com and is still available on Amazon; see: http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Nazi-Personality-Psychological-Investigation/dp/0805818987 Henry Murray was also asked to prepare a psychological analysis of Adolf ("Adolph") Hitler and one can use the Wikipedia entry on it to go to the original report and related materials (yadda-yadda); see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_the_Personality_of_Adolph_Hitler -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=13440 or send a blank email to leave-13440-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
