August Aichhorn

August Aichhorn (July 27, 1878, Vienna – October 13, 1949, Vienna) was an Austrian educator and psychoanalyst.

Aichhorn’s father had had a career in the banking system of Austria, but it ended with the long depression which began in 1873.

Aichhorn was initially an elementary school teacher in Vienna, and in 1918, following World War I was responsible for setting up educational centers for problem youth in Lower Austria. His success in this endeavor led him to be encouraged by Anna Freud (1895–1982) to enroll in psychoanalytic training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1922. Soon afterwards, Aichhorn set up a child guidance service for the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. During World War II he was a training analyst for psychiatrists in Vienna, and following the war Aichhorn took legal maneuvers to reopen the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was later renamed the “August Aichhorn Gesellschaft”.

The city of Vienna was a lifelong source of strength and vitality for Aichhorn. Heinz Kohut said of him: “He knew every shade of dialect, every nuance of local habits, depending on regional and class differences. He knew it all without effort because it was his medium of life.”

August Aichhorn is considered to be one of the founders of psychoanalytic education. He is remembered for his work with juvenile delinquent and disadvantaged youth. He believed that imposed discipline and suppression which were practiced in traditional reformatories yielded few positive results. Aichhorn was known for his intuitive talents in dealing with the antisocial nature of troubled adolescents, and his unorthodox approach in handling their aggressive tendencies. Aichhorn was an advocate of the idea that there was a distinction between manifest and latent delinquency, and believed that arrested development in youth was a precursor to antisocial behavior. He also believed that this situation was caused by disturbances in early child-parent relationships.

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