Leading articles

THE VIENNA PSYCHOANALYST wants to give not only already internationally established psychoanalysts, but also still unknown psychoanalysts the opportunity to post a self-written and not yet published article on the FrontPage of our online magazine!

Our Users then can leave comments, ask questions or discuss the articles in our forum. Our aim is to provide an international platform where for the first time anyone interested in psychoanalysis can exchange ideas on certain topics.
Articles are welcome in German and/ or English.

If you are interested, please send your article to
leadingarticle@theviennapsychoanalyst.at


(For reasons of readability, the male form is used with personal names, however the female form is also always intended.)

In our interview series "in conversation with“, we will briefly present the authors of the leading articles. We want to give our users the opportunity to read the leading article from a different point of view.

This week we are very glad to welcome Hans-Joachim Maaz from Halle, Germany.

Maaz, Hans-Joachim, dr. med.
Specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy
Specialist in psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy / psychoanalysis
from 1980 - 2008 Chief Physician of the Clinic for Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at Diakoniekrankenhaus Halle / S.
Chairman of the Choriner Institute for Depth Psychology and Psychosocial Prevention
Chairman of the Hans-Joachim Maaz Stiftung Beziehungskultur


DWP: What brought you to psychoanalysis?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: The need for self-awareness and social analysis, particularly incentive was the political-ideological degradation of it in the former GDR as a "bourgeois heterodoxy",  and to find out why psychoanalysis was granted such a special "honor".

DWP: If you had the opportunity to talk to Sigmund Freud, what would be the topic?
Are there any specific questions?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: I would endeavor to understand and interpret the cause of the intense rivalry and mutual degradation among analysts.
I would like to ask Freud about his relationship with his mother, and reflect on his relationships with women and the possible psychodynamics regarding his cancer.


DWP: Fabric or leather couch?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: Fabric couch – it´s "warmer" of course.


DWP: Bruno Bettelheim pointed out the importance of fairy tales in childhood. Will you tell us your favorite fairy tale? And do you see parallels to your own adult life?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: "The Emperor´s New Clothes". In all social formations into which I was born (National Socialism) or which I have witnessed (GDR socialism) and which I criticize today (narcissistic society), lying and hypocrisy towards "authority" are an essential source of "normopathy" dominant in  the bandwagon syndrome.


DWP: I dream,….

Hans-Joachim Maaz: I dream of a really happy childhood, which can only be achieved through cultivating a "relationship culture" between parents and children. Relationship instead of education, commitment instead of education!


DWP: What do you find good or particularly good about psychoanalysis and is there anything you do not like about it?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: I particularly like the discovery of the unconscious and the possibility to work on and with the unconscious. Very helpful aretransference and countertransference as the basis of relationship-based therapeutic work.         

I´m critical of the so-called "Oedipus complex"! An essential myth for the parent-child relationship, but completely misinterpreted. The myth describes the twofold guilt of the parents wanting to kill their son Oedipus. Later, the father (King Laius) demands that the son (Oedipus) should avoid him, and the mother (Jocasta) marries her son, for only she could have recognized her son Oedipus by his swollen foot. To interpret this myth in such a way that the son (the child) should have the task of overcoming a "libidinal" entanglement with the parents, I consider absurd and a fatal consequence of turning away from the seduction theory to focus on the drive theory.


DWP: What challenges did you have to face during your analytic training?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: The fact that the "classical" analysis remains limited to the couch, and that the therapeutic treatment of the pre-verbal structure-forming relationship experiences (the so-called "early disorders") demands a different setting and other therapeutic interventions. Therefore, I turned to physical psychotherapy, and after sufficient self-awareness training tried to integrate and teach both theoretically and practically interventions based on physical therapy in analytical and depth psychological psychotherapy.


DWP: Do you have a favorite Freud - quote?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: "Where Id was, ego shall be."


DWP:  Are there other psychoanalysts, in addition to Sigmund Freud, who you like to study?

Hans-Joachim Maaz: Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Horst-Eberhard Richter, Michael Lucas Moeller.


Thank you very much for this conversation, we are already looking forward to your leading article!


Contact information of the author:
Hans-Joachim Maaz