Max Isserlin (1879-1941) and the Possibilities for Psychiatry in Imperial and Weimar Germany

By the first decade of the twentieth century, a new generation of German psychiatrists led by Emil Kraepelin and his circle were committed to a return to the bedside after decades of brain-centred research. Yet, fulfilling such ambitions brought a series of scientific, intellectual, institutional, and socio-political developments that ultimately changed the course of world history. This thesis is about Max Isserlin – a hitherto unstudied Jewish multidisciplinary Kraepelinian psychiatrist – who played an important role in these events. Drawing on a wealth of published and archival sources, the thesis reconstructs the thought and working practices of Isserlin, explaining the intellectual, institutional, and socio-political backgrounds to his activities as well as the role of these in the production of medical disciplines of mind and brain. In doing so, three new points are made. Firstly, it is shown that Isserlin formed integral part of an elite of Munich-based psychiatrists that incorporated experimental psychology and hereditary theories into clinical psychopathology for the first time in history. Secondly, it is explained how Isserlin, through the creation of the Heckscher Clinic and other institutions, and despite his affiliations to the psychiatric elite, managed to strategically incorporate his own, somewhat diverse agenda within that of the latter. Thirdly, it is argued that such strategic manoeuvres allowed Isserlin to produce pioneering therapeutic practices, unique disciplinary arrangements, as well as new diagnostic and prognostic categories, all of which had an impact on either his local, national, or international neuroscientific and social milieus. Finally, it will be contended that an exploration of the figure of Isserlin demonstrates that, in pre-Nazi German psychiatry, it was possible to believe that some people had an ‘inferior mental constitution’ and at the same time bring about therapeutic progress.