Eugen Bleulers Seelenverständnis: Fragmente einer künftigen Werkbiographie

The name Eugen Bleuler is almost exclusively linked with matters concerning the nosology of schizophrenia and the relationship of clinical psychiatry and psychoanalysis. His bibliography lists different works which deal with contemporary topics concerning legislation, the fight against alcoholism and for the most part, from the later years, topics concerning general psychology.In this article subject matters from texts by Bleuler, including some which have been inaccessible up to now, will be reviewed, which either allow interpretative conclusions on his conception of the world or which explicitly have this as a topic. With explicit references to his different publications, often dealing with basic problems of medical psychology and a scientifically based ethic, Bleulers anti-religious and anti-philosophical position will be shown. An effort towards integration of seemingly incompatible, side-by-side standing, unrelated biological and psychological concepts, which probably is most likely to be explained by the contemporary background of ideas, is recognisable. In this context Eugen Bleuler refers to an already (especially by Richard Semon) systematically developed theory called “Mnemism” that he interpreted and applied to the psychological circumstances mentioned above. The theory of “mnemism”, which can be most adequately described as a biogenetic-vitalistic theory, is assuming that all organic life – independent of the possibility of a self-reflecting consciousness – is able to learn from experiences made by analysis of environment and to pass it on to following generations. Patterns of stimulus reactions are in the sense of this theory memorised and reactivated under similar situational circumstances by the psychological mode of association. It represents the benchmark for Bleuler’s standpoints, for example the question of determination of human acting. The assumption of the efficacy of specific, not necessarily consciously remembered “engrams” of memory suggests the hypothesis of the existence of unconsciousness.