Oskar Pfister

Who was Oskar Pfister?

Oskar Pfister was a Swiss Lutheran minister and lay psychoanalyst who was native of Wiedikon.

He studied theology, philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Zurich and Basel, earning his degree in 1898 at the philosophical faculty. Subsequently, he became a minister in Wald, where he remained until 1920.

Pfister is remembered for his efforts involving the application of psychoanalysis into the science of education, as well as his belief system in a synthesis of psychology and theology.

He was a pioneer of modern Swiss psychology, belonging to a psychoanalytical circle in Zurich that was centered around Eugen Bleuler and Carl Jung. In 1919, he formed the Swiss Society for Psychoanalysis. Although the psychiatrist Emil Oberholzer founded a separate Swiss Medical Society for Psychoanalysis in 1928, Pfister stuck with the group he had started, defending Sigmund Freud's position on lay analysis that Oberholzer's group rejected.

Pfister was an early associate of Freud's, maintaining an ongoing correspondence with the latter from 1909 to 1939. Pfister believed that theology and psychology were compatible disciplines, and advocated the concept of a "Christian Eros". He was especially interested in Freud's concepts of the Oedipus Complex, castration anxiety and infantile sexuality. From a religious standpoint, Pfister advocated a return to what he saw as the original fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ.