Buhler revisited in times of war-Peter R. Hofstatter's The Crisis of Psychology (1941)

During World War II in 1941, the psychologist P.R. Hofstatter added an article to the debate on the crisis of psychology in a distinctly Nazi academic journal. After introducing Hofstatter and the journal, the core elements of his diagnosis and therapy recommendation beneath the National-Socialist-verbiage will be expounded. Hofstatter, a student of Karl Buhler's, ties on to his teacher's crisis well-known publication, but perceives the crisis in a broader perspective and connects it to the decline of theology and of pastoral guidance. Hofstatter's central, new aspect is the practice of psychology without which he sees it doomed. A central feature of psychological practice should be secular, non-therapeutic guidance of individuals. Various contextual facets are illuminated, Hofstatter's thwarted attempts to get a university position, the recent establishment of psychology in Germany as a discipline teaching professionals, the abolition of German military psychology, the battle for the Berlin university chair of Wolfgang Kohler. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.