Papers and research notebooks

Creator: Oberholzer, Emil, 1883-1958

Date: 1896 - 1958, 1968

Level of Description: Sub-collection/group

Material Type: Manuscripts

Call Number: Unavailable

Unit ID: 224681

Restrictions: Portions restricted: individually identifiable patient information.

Abstract: This collection of papers from Emil and Mira Oberholzer largely consists of Oberholzer's research into and scoring of the Rorschach inkblot interpretation test. This includes manuscripts and papers from both Oberholzer and from the creator of the test, Hermann Rorschach. Another large section of this collection consists of Emil's research into the relationship between heredity / genealogy and schizophrenia. The collection includes other professional and academic papers and records for both Oberholzers, as well as some miscellaneous personal papers for the couple. The collection is particularly significant for clinicians and others interested in early Rorschach testing; a large portion of this collection is also restricted, due to individually identifiable information for patients.

Space Required/Quantity: 22.25 cubic feet (41 boxes).

Title (Main title): Papers and research notebooks

Part of: Menninger Foundation Archives. Historic Psychiatry sub-collection.

Language note: German, English, Polish, French, Russian, Spanish.

Biography

Biog. Sketch (Full): Emil Oberholzer was born 24 December 1883 in Zweibrueucken, Germany. His Swiss parents moved back to Switzerland with him, his brother, and three sisters when he was still young, and Oberholzer grew up in Zurich. He received his medical training from the university there, with some studying also in Basel and Geneva, graduating in 1908.

For the next two years Oberholzer assisted and trained in psychiatry under Eugen Bleuler. While working with Bleuler Oberholzer met his future wife, another physician and assistant to Bleuler, Maria Mira Gincburg (born 1884 or 1887) of Lodz, part of the Russian Empire at the time and not far from Warsaw, Poland. They both also worked at the Breitenau-Schaffhouse psychiatric clinic. They had one son, Emil Hermann Oberholzer, born in 1926.

In 1912/1913, Oberholzer and Gincburg went to Vienna, Austria to be analyzed by Sigmund Freud. Emil also became friends with Hermann Rorschach, helping to develop the shape interpretation test and publishing on the topic on behalf of his friend after Rorschach died unexpectedly in 1922. In 1919 Oberholzer and his wife were two founding members of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, for which Oberholzer served as president until 1928. He also formed the Swiss Medical Society for Psychoanalysis that same year, in an effort to alleviate the growing conflict about lay analysis; this society only lasted a few years.

Oberholzer went into private practice in 1919 with Dr. Brunner of Kusnacht. He and Mira both trained numerous analysts in the following years, but in 1938 because of the rise of Nazism (Mira was Jewish), they emigrated with their son to New York. They went into private practice again, and Oberholzer became an honorary member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society in 1941.

Mira Oberholzer-Gincburg died in 1949. Emil Oberholzer withdrew more and more from friends and society after his wife's death and died himself in New York on 4 May 1958, at the age of 75.

Portions of Collection Separately Described:

Locators:

No Locators Identified

Related Records or Collections

Associated materials: Fonds Emil Oberholzer, Hermann Rorschach Archives.

Related materials: Sigmund Freud correspondence and articles, part of the Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society.

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Additional Information for Researchers

Restrictions: Portions restricted: individually identifiable patient information.