Lydia Sicher Explained

Lydia Sicher (1890–1962), born Lydia Bak, was an Austrian-born medical doctor and psychologist.[1] She founded the Institute for Individual Psychology.

Life

Sicher married Harry Sicher in 1913, and they both then volunteered as doctors in World War I for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[1]

She later studied and worked with Alfred Adler, taking over him as director of the Clinic of Nervous Diseases at Maria Hilfer Hospital.[2] George R. Bach, a co-worker of hers at the University of Southern California in the 1950s, spoke on her psychological techniques that "It was stressful therapy, But never unproductive, always real, genuine, and truth oriented."[3] Her techniques were evocative of the Hegelian dialectic, wherein she used conflict with the patient as a means of arriving at truth.[3]

Notes and References

  1. Triarhou . Lazaros C . Women neuropsychiatrists on Wagner-Jauregg's staff in Vienna at the time of the Nobel award: ordeal and fortitude . History of Psychiatry . December 2019 . 30 . 4 . 393–408 . 10.1177/0957154X19861515 . 31303052 . 196616772 .
  2. News: DR. LYDIA SICHER DIES; Psychiatrist on Coast Worked With Adler in Vienna . The New York Times . . 4 April 1962 .
  3. Bach . George R. . Lydia Sicher as therapist. . Journal of Individual Psychology . May 1978 . 34 . 1 . 85–6 . . 357661 .