FRANZ ALEXANDER'S OBSERVATIONS ON PSYCHIATRY AND LAW.

Abstract

Following Dr. Franz Alexander’s unexpected death on March 8, 1964, a careful search of his work in progress revealed no notes or material for his paper, “The Problem of Free Will and Responsibility,” to be given at the American Psychiatric Association meeting. As a consequence, I was invited to describe Dr. Alexander’s contemporary involvement with psychiatry and law at the University of Southern California and present some of his recent comments and observations relating psychiatry and psychoanalysis to the legal structure and process. Very early in his scientific career, Dr. Alexander began to apply psychoanalytic principles and techniques to legal issues. In the middle 1920’s, Dr. Alexander, who had completed his training at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute, joined with his friend, Hugo Staub, an analytically trained attorney, to deal with the theoretical and practical factors involved in the psychoanalytic study of criminality. As a psychoanalyst, Dr. Alexander examined defendants whose defense was being conducted by Hugo Staub and testified in court on a number of occasions. During his courtroom testimony, he was given the opportunity to explain to the judiciary what the underlying psychiatric motivations of a given crime were in the light of the total personality of the offender and his underlying psychic conflicts. Many analysts, including Freud, have been interested in the theoretical relationships between psychoanalysis and sociallegal processes, but most have refused to enter the courtroom arena. Dr. Alexander’s active involvement in the trial process sharply contrasted with the views of these