The history of childhood is at the centre of my academic work.
I explore the characteristics of childhood in the distant past, with a particular focus on the emotional aspects of childhood and the historical forms of parent-child relationships. I wrote my 1998 dissertation ‘Childhood and Autobiography’ on this topic. I assume that more emotionally attentive forms of parent-child relationships have developed over time. Methodologically, I work with interpretative methods that are based primarily on depth psychology and psychoanalytic theories.
The mystical experiences of religious virtuosos are the subject of ‘Childhood and Mysticism in the Middle Ages’ (2002). The mystics show fantasies that suggest sexual abuse as the central aspect of their childhood.
attackiert von Dämonen
The worldwide practice of swaddling is examined in ‘Gefesselte Kinder’ (2011). This practice has been documented since at least the Greek Bronze Age. Swaddling was associated with superstitions and demonic beliefs about the child. Even today, there are forms of this way of dealing with babies.
ca 4000 BP
The psychology of art and its emotional foundations have interested me ever since I was working on my doctoral thesis. In ‘Der steinerne Blick’ (The Stone Gaze), published in 2008 together with the mediaevalist Peter Dinzelbacher, I explore the emotional aspects of Romanesque architectural sculpture. The staring heads on church buildings point to a disturbing form of religious experience.
In ‘Symbol Plazenta’ (2016), the artistic symbolisation of the primal object placenta is in the foreground.
In several publications, I deal with Palaeolithic art, for example in ‘Paleolithic Art’ (2024). The psychoemotional and prenatal roots of these fascinating images are in the foreground.
37 000 BP
43 900 BP
Children’s drawings are the subject of my current book ‘Children’s Drawings and Prenatal Psychology’, in which I show how an early layer of the unconscious is connected to prenatal experiences. This layer influences later images. One of my child patients, who developed symptoms immediately after the birth of his sibling, drew very expressively. His first object, his placenta, can be recognised in these drawings. This single case study is about numerous images, the biographical reference and the precisely documented embedding of the creation of the images in a therapeutic context.
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