Emil Wilhelm Magnus Georg Kraepelin (1856-1926).
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Germany↗
Biomedical subjects
Eric J Engstrom
Publications and source records attributed to Eric J Engstrom.
The Directions of psychiatric research by Emil Kraepelin. 1887.
This classic text reproduces Emil Kraepelin's inaugural lecture at the University of Dorpat in 1887. It represents one of the most succinct contemporary surveys of German psychiatric discourse in the 1880s. It also outlines Kraepelin's own research priorities in the early years of his career, providing important historical background to the motives that drove him to place such great emphasis on (and hope in) experimental psychology. Contrary to our contemporary image of Kraepelin as a grand clinical nosologist, this text shows that he was much more of a diagnostician and experimental psychologist than historians have generally assumed. The document also reflects a wider 'psychological turn' in German psychiatry, away from patho-anatomic study - a turn that has often been overlooked in the historiographic literature.
Biomedical Research↗
Emil Kraepelin's 'Self-Assessment': clinical autography in historical context.
Contemporary psychiatrists and historians know very little about the life of Emil Kraepelin. Until recently they had to glean what information they could from his memoirs, which had more to say about his travels to far-flung corners of the world than about his own mental life. Now, however, a unique historical document has been uncovered which opens a window on Kraepelin's own psyche. In a manuscript written shortly after World War I, Kraepelin turned his diagnostic methods on himself and clinically documented his own state of mind. This paper reproduces a translation of Kraepelin's 'Self-Assessment' and places it in its historical context.
Autobiographies as Topic↗