Reik, Theodor

Reik, Theodor (tā`ōdōr rīk), 1888–1969, American psychologist and author, b. Vienna, Ph.D. Univ. of Vienna, 1912. He was one of Sigmund Freud's earliest and most brilliant students; their association lasted from 1910 to 1938. In Europe, Reik conducted research and lectured at several psychoanalytic institutes before coming (1938) to the United States. He was naturalized in 1944. He founded (1948) the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. Among his many writings are From Thirty Years with Freud (tr. 1940), Listening with the Third Ear (1948, repr. 1972), The Secret Self (1952), The Search Within (1956, repr. 1968), Of Love and Lust (1957, repr. 1970), Myth and Guilt (1957, repr. 1970), The Compulsion to Confess (1959, repr. 1972), Creation of Woman (1960), The Temptation (1961), Voices from the Inaudible (1964), Curiosities of the Self (1965), and The Many Faces of Sex (1966).

Bibliography

See the autobiographical Fragments of a Great Confession (1949, repr. 1965).

---

Reik, Theodor (1888–1969) psychoanalyst; born in Vienna, Austria. He became a close friend and protégé of Sigmund Freud after they met in 1910. He took a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Vienna, and after serving in the German army during World War I, he practiced as a psychoanalyst in Vienna (1918–28), where he participated in Freud's famous Wednesday evening meetings. After 1928 he taught at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute until 1933, when he fled the Nazis to The Hague, Holland. In 1938 he emigrated to the U.S.A. where he established a private practice in New York City. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944. In 1946 he established the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis when the American Psychoanalytic Association refused him full membership due to his not being a physician—even though Freud himself had written a famous essay in 1926, defending Reik's right to practice. Reik emphasized the role of intuition in a psychoanalyst's treatment and diverged from certain orthodox Freudian views, including the emphasis on the sexual nature of human beings, but maintained his friendship with Freud until the latter's death. His many works included Listening With the Third Ear (1948), Of Love and Lust (1957), and Curiosities of the Self (1965).