Paul Federn

Federn is largely remembered for his theories involving ego psychology and therapeutic treatment of psychosis.

[5] In the late 1920s, Federn published important books such as "Some Variations in Ego-Feeling" and "Narcissism in the Structure of the Ego".

He believed that a patients' attempt at integration should involve strengthening his defenses, while at the same time avoiding repressed material.

With regard to schizophrenic patients, he believed that their egos possessed insufficient cathectic energy, and that it was a lack rather than an excess of narcissistic libido that caused a psychotic individuals' difficulties with the object.

In a 1919 work titled "Zur Psychologie der Revolution: die Vaterlose Gesellschaft", he explains the challenge to authority by the post-World War I generation as unconscious parricide whose goal is to create a "fatherless society".

Although Federn's psychoanalytical theories had limited influence within the movement, he had several important followers in Europe and America.