Franz Alexander

To the Editor: I would like to comment on the article by Judd Marmor, M.D., that appeared recently in Images in Psychiatry (1). Dr. Marmor wrote that Franz Alexander “was invited in 1930 by Robert Hutchins, then President of the University of Chicago, to become its Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis—the first University Chair of Psychoanalysis in history.”

Dr. Marmor’s statement is true from a practical point of view since Alexander was the first functioning head or chair of psychoanalysis in history. However, the historical truth is that the first psychoanalyst who was appointed to be a professor of psychoanalysis was Sándor Ferenczi (2). He received this title at the University of Budapest in 1919 by the short-lived communist regime. After the change in regime, Ferenczi’s appointment as the newly founded chair was not confirmed, so he lost the appointment before he was be able to begin to function as a university professor of psychoanalysis.