Eugen Bleuler

Eugen Bleuler (1857 to 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist born in Zollikon near Zurich, best known for shaping modern ideas of mental illness. He trained in psychiatry at Waldau Hospital, studied with Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris and Bernhard von Gudden in Munich, then worked at the Burghoelzli university hospital in Zurich and directed the clinic at Rheinau before returning to the Burghoelzli as professor, where he served as director from 1898 to 1927. He coined terms still in use, including schizophrenia, schizoid, autism, depth psychology and ambivalence. He took an early interest in Sigmund Freud and encouraged his staff, among them Carl Jung, to study unconscious and psychotic processes, though he resigned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1911 because he found the movement too dogmatic. His record is contested: the source also describes racist and ableist beliefs and eugenic practices at the Burghoelzli, which the atlas records as part of the historical account.