(1963). The International Psycho-Analytical Library, 59:8-10 Preface to Psychoanalysis and faith: the letters of Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister Oskar Pfister, the youngest of the four sons of a Protestant pastor, was born in Zürich in 1873. He lost his father at the age of three. After attending school in Zürich he studied theology, philosophy and psychology in Zürich, Basle and Berlin. His first congregation was at Wald in the canton of Zürich, and in 1902 he joined the Zürich circuit, of which he remained a member until his retirement in 1939. In 1934 he received an honorary degree from the theological faculty of the University of Geneva. His first wife, Erika, née Wunderli, died in 1929, leaving a son who is now a psychiatrist in Zürich. His second wife was a widowed cousin, Martha Zuppinger-Urner, who already had two children, to whom Pfister was an admirable father. During the first years of his ministry Pfister wrote a paper protesting against ‘the sins of omission towards psychology of present-day theology'. In 1908 he came across the work of Freud, [This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.] |
