Forgotten Freudian

This book examines Karl Stern, an overlooked figure in the history of psychoanalysis who presented Freud's theories and clinical methods to Catholic and other Christian audiences across the world.

Stern was a German Jew trained as a neurologist and psychiatrist. He left Germany in 1937, living first in London and then in Canada, where he taught at McGill University and the University of Ottawa. From 1952 to 1968 he served as Chief of Psychiatry at several major clinics in Ottawa and Montreal, after which he opened a private practice.

His 1951 memoir, The Pillar of Fire, traces his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, his medical and psychiatric education, and his first analysis. It also recounts his brief engagements with Orthodox Judaism, Marxism and Zionism while Nazi power was growing in Germany, and it describes the lasting inner conflicts that led to his conversion to Catholicism in 1943.