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 Sonja Lienhart:

Born 1988, studied medicine at the Universities of Freiburg and Vienna. Student assistant, among others in the child and adolescent psychiatry department of the University Hospital in Freiburg (till 2013) and at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (since 2015). Ph.D. on "The religious understanding of Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung in presentation and comparison". She is a fellow of Cusanuswerk.



DWP: What brought you to psychoanalysis?

Sonja Lienhart: At school I had a dedicated religion teacher, who at the time taught us a lot about the criticism of religion by Freud, Marx and Feuerbach. Later I met people who were familiar with psychoanalysis or even worked as analysts. With their view of life and their way to think I could somehow identify.


DWP: Fabric or leather couch?

Sonja Lienhart: I associate fabric with warmth and placableness/ indulgence/ compliancy, leather is rather cool, smooth and sterile - not so inviting for the free association ... So rather fabric.


DWP: According to Bruno Bettelheim and 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?

Sonja Lienhart: There is the fairy tale "The Star Money", where I think that the common interpretation refers less to me, but rather the strong image of the girl, where talers fall from heaven into her lab - an unexpected fortune. Of this I had quite a bit in my life.


DWP: I dream,….

Sonja Lienhart: ... Puzzling enough to occupy me for many hours. Unfortunately, sometimes I lack the leisure or the displeasure to make the effort wins, to confront myself with the contents. In principle, I take my dreams very seriously and they often reflect what really concerns me.


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

Sonja Lienhart: Psychoanalysis is on one hand a process-like attempt to understand life´s problems and deal with them. However, she´s always been much more than just a method of therapy. In art and culture it also offers us, to search for the meaning of the unconscious mind and the repression processes – it is a precious key for understanding human cultural achievements. This diversity of psychoanalysis is what I really appreciate.


DWP: Do you have a favorite Freud - quote?

Sonja Lienhart: “I understood that from now onwards I was one of those who have ‘disturbed the sleep of the world’”


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

Sonja Lienhart: Many! I like especially the texts by Donald W. Winnicott. However, in addition to the theoretical writings I also like to read biographies of psychoanalysts, particularly on those who have still known Freud and seen him in meetings of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. For example, the book by Richard F. Sterba "Reminiscences of a Viennese Psychoanalyst".


DWP: Why or how did you choose the topic of your article which we will present our readers next week?

Sonja Lienhart: It appealed to me to deal with the very different access two very different men had on the subject of religion. The opposition of their views is something invigorating, which attracted me. But there are also pragmatic reasons: this article corresponds to an overview of the summary from my medical dissertation in which I rather dealt with a cultural theory than a clinical facet of psychoanalysis, because I still don’t practice psychoanalysis.


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



Contact information of the author:
Sonja Lienhart