Dr. Abraham Arden Brill

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Dr. Abraham Arden Brill

Birthdate:
Birthplace: Kanczuga, Przeworsk County, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland
Death: March 02, 1948 (73)
Beacon, Dutchess County, New York, United States
Place of Burial: Fresh Pond Crematory
Immediate Family:

Son of Shraga Feiwel "Philip" Brill and Esther Brill
Husband of Dr. Rose Kitty Owen
Father of Gioia Bernheim and Edmund R. Brill
Brother of Schmelke Brill; Sara Malke Reizfeld; Nathan (Naftali) Brill; Leon (Leib) Brill; Kalman Lasor Brill and 1 other

Occupation: Physician
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated:

About Dr. Abraham Arden Brill

Abraham Arden Brill (October 12, 1874 – March 2, 1948) was an Austrian-born psychiatrist who spent almost his entire adult life in the United States. He was the first psychoanalyst to practice in the United States and the first translator of Freud into English.

Brill was born in Kańczuga, Austrian Galicia. He arrived in the United States alone and penniless at the age of 15. Working continuously to finance his studies,[2] he eventually graduated from New York University in 1901 and obtained his M.D. from Columbia University in 1903.[3] Ernest Jones commented with admiration: "He might have been called a rough diamond, but there was no doubt about the diamond".[2] Brill spent the next 4 years working at Central Islip State Hospital on Long Island.[3] Brill married Dr. K. Rose Owen, with whom he had two children. He died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in March 2, 1948.[3]

After studying with Eugen Bleuler in Zurich, Switzerland,[1] he met Freud, with whom he maintained a correspondence until Freud's death in 1939.[1] He returned to the United States in 1908 to become one of the earliest and most active exponents of psychoanalysis, being the first to translate into English most of the major works of Freud, as well as books by Jung. His first translation of Freud appeared in 1909 as Some Papers on Hysteria;[3] and while the quality of his translations might at times be challenged, his overall contribution to the fostering of psychoanalysis in America cannot.[4] He campaigned for academic recognition of his field, lectured at Columbia University, and became clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University.[1] He maintained a psychoanalytic practice as well.

In 1911 he founded the New York Psychoanalytic Society (or Institute) and later helped found the American Psychoanalytic Association.[1] The library of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute is named in his honor.[1] Although opposed in principle to Lay analysis - "psychoanalysis...can be utilized only by persons who have been trained in anatomy and pathology"[5] - rather than split the International movement, in 1929 he made a tactical concession to Freud,[6] and as head of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, sanctioned the limited introduction of lay analysts to the profession, which had previously restricted its ranks to medical professionals.[7] During the 1930s he played a key role in finding employment for psychiatric professionals exiled from Nazi Europe.[8] Once sympathetic to homosexuals, he revised his views and wrote in 1940 that "even so-called classical inverts are not entirely free from some paranoid traits".[9] E. L. Bernays consulted with Brill on the subject of women's smoking.[10] One of his last pieces of writing - his preface to Eric Berne's 1947 study, The Mind in Action - commends Berne's ability to "expound the new psychology without the affectivity of the older Freudians", placing his tribute in the context of himself "having read everything written on Freud and psychoanalysis since I first introduced him here".[11]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Brill]

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[https://archive.jta.org/1948/03/04/archive/dr-abraham-brill-pioneer-psychiatrist-and-translator-of-freuds-works-dies-at-74'''Dr. Abraham Brill, Pioneer Psychiatrist and Translator of Freud’s Works, Dies at 74. March 9, 1948]

Dr. Abraham Arden Brill, one of the world’s leading exponents of psychoanalysis and a pioneer psychiatrist, died here yesterday at 74. Born in Kanczuga, Austria, he came to this country as a youth and studied at Columbia University. Later, he returned to Europe and studied under Dr. Sigmund Freud, whose works he brought to public attention in this country by publishing them in English.

Brill is credited with introducing numerous psychiatric terms into the American language. In addition to his translations of the works of Freud and of Dr. Carl Jung, he publisher numerous works of his own in the field of psychoanalysis, including “Psychoanalysis — Its Theories and Practical Application,” and “Fundamental Conceptions of Psychoanalysis.”

BRILL, ABRAHAM ARDEN (1874-1948) The American psychiatrist Abraham Brill was born on October 12, 1874, in Kanczuga, Austria (then Galicia) and died on March 2, 1948, in New York City.

His father was a noncommissioned officer in the Austrian Army who served with Maximilian in Mexico. After spending his childhood in Austria, Brill emmigrated to the United States in 1889 at age fifteen, without his family and with almost no money. He worked to support himself through high school and college, graduating from New York University in 1901. He received an MD degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University in 1904.

Brill worked as a psychiatrist in the New York State Mental Hospital System at the Central Islip State Hospital under the tutelage of Adolph Meyer and August Hoch. From 1902 to 1907, he traveled in Europe, first to Paris and then, at the suggestion of Frederick Peterson, to Zürich; there he learned about Freud's new science, psychoanalysis, from the staff of the Burgholzi Psychiatric Clinic (which included Eugen Bleuler and Carl Jung). He returned to America a year later and accepted a position as assistant physician of mental disease, Bellevue Hospital, which he held until 1911. In 1909 he attended the Clark University Conference, traveling with Freud's party from New York. He became the first practicing psychoanalyst in America and interested a small group of New York psychiatrists in psychoanalytic ideas.

In 1911, Sigmund Freud urged Ernest Jones to establish the American Psychoanalytic Association (APA) with James Jackson Putnam as president, and Brill as secretary. Brill refused to participate and instead, on February 12, 1911, with fifteen other physicians, founded the New York Psychoanalytic Society, several months before the APA was established in May of that year. From that time to the close of the First World War the New York Psychoanalytic Society was kept alive, practically single handedly, by Brill. He was the expositor and public advocate of psychoanalysis par excellence. He spoke at medical, neurological, and psychiatric societies, and to lay groups as well. He lectured to social workers, the New York City Police College, the Education Department of NYU—many of these lectures were reprinted in professional journals and lay publications. During the 1930s he presented a weekly radio broadcast lecture on mental health themes.

Of greatest importance for the dissemination and promulgation of psychoanalytic ideas in America were Brill's translations. Brill translated into English the major work of Sigmund Freud, some of Carl Gustav Jung's works, and Bleuler's Textbook of Psychiatry. His own publications included numerous journal articles and important books, including Psychoanalysis (1921). His The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud was published in 1938.

Abraham Arden Brill's importance to psychoanalysis was also as a leader of both psychoanalytic and psychiatric institutions. Brill became a member of the APA in 1914. He served as president of the APA in 1919 and 1920 and again from 1929 to 1935. He was president of the New York Psychoanalytic Society from 1911 to 1913 and from 1925 to 1936. His influence on psychoanalysts both in New York and the United States was at its zenith between 1929 to 1936. During this period he played a central role in restricting membership in the New York Society and in the APA to physicians. He defied Freud, who was supportive of lay analysis, because of his concern about "quackery," medical treatment by poorly trained or unauthorized practitioners. It was Brill's conviction that the survival of psychoanalysis in the United States depended on maintaining its medical identity.

Brill also played an important role in achieving autonomy for the APA within the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). These organizational and credential principles were maintained until overturned by the settlement of a lawsuit brought against the IPA, the New York and Columbia Psychoanalytic Institutes, and APA by a group of psychologists in the 1980s. From the years immediately preceding World War II and until his death in 1948, Brill was displaced first by the Americans Bertram Lewin and Lawrence Kubie, and then by the Viennese psychoanalysts who emigrated to New York to escape Nazi persecution. However, he remained a proud and respected figure who more than any other psychoanalyst was responsible for the growth of psychoanalysis in the United States.

Arnold D. Richards

See also: Frink, Horace Westlake; International Psychoanalytic Association; Lay analysis; New York Psychoanalytic Institute; United States.

Bibliography Hale, Nathan G., Jr. (1995). The rise and crisis of psychoanalysis in the United States: Freud and the Americans 1917-1985. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Dr. Abraham Arden Brill's Timeline

1874
October 12, 1874
Kanczuga, Przeworsk County, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland
1911
1911
New York, New York, United States
1914
November 28, 1914
New York, New York, United States
1948
March 2, 1948
Age 73
Beacon, Dutchess County, New York, United States
March 5, 1948
Age 73
Fresh Pond Crematory