Journey to the Center of the Soul: Fischl Schneersohn’s Psycho-Expeditions between Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology

Fischl Schneersohn (1887-1958) is among the most fascinating forgotten figures in the history of the psy-disciplines in the twentieth century. What made Schneersohn’s works unique was the combination of contemporary psychological and psychiatric research with Jewish mysticism. Religion played a central role for Schneersohn, who grew up in a Hasidic family and became a rabbi at the age of 15.

In our talk, we will focus on Schneersohn’s main work, Der veg tsum mentsh (‘the way to man’). We will sketch out his psychological theory – an idiosyncratic fusion of Freudian and Kabbalistic motives –, and discuss his idea of the ‘psycho-expedition’. Similar to psychoanalysis, Schneersohn’s psycho-expedition, which could take place individually or in group settings, offered both a way to understand the mind and to treat neuroses. True mental health, Schneersohn claimed, could only be achieved by tapping into the primordial sources of ecstatic creativity, a motive which is very close to the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria (16^th century, funder of modern Kabbalah) and the idea of a wilful controlled ecstatic experience to find a close connection to God. Schneersohn uses Kabbalistic motives like different Spheres of the Soul, that in his theory have to be examined all together. Apart from presenting the ideas of an original but forgotten psychotherapist, our talk provides a unique example for the combination of modern psychotherapy and religious thought, and for the utopian dimension of psychotherapy in the first half of the twentieth century.