The paper sets out to recall the profile of Karol de Beaurain, a psychiatrist, who was one
of first Poles to use the psychoanalytic method in treatment. So far, he has been mostly known
as the one who was Witkacy’s psychoanalyst. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and Eugenia
Dunin-Borkowska are the first patients who are known by their names and who received
psychoanalytic treatment in the history of the Polish medicine. Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s
letters and drawings originating from the psychoanalysis period served as a source of information
about Witkacy’s psychoanalysis. The paper illustrates dr Beaurain’s fate during World
War I when he was first a military doctor in Skoczów and then an assistant in prof. Piltz’s
Neurological-Psychiatric Clinic in Kraków where he actively participated in the creation of
a multidimensional programme of war neurosis treatment. After the war finished, initially
Beaurain stayed at his assistant post at the Psychiatric Clinic in Kraków but then in 1921 he
relocated to the National Psychiatric Hospital in Dziekanka near Poznań. With his professional
expertise he contributed to the strengthening of the Great Poland region psychiatry that had
experienced qualified personnel shortages after the German qualified staff left. The growing
numbers of patients and the overload of professional duties were probably the factors that
led to dr. Beaurain’s premature death while he was holding the position of the head physician
at the National Psychiatric Hospital in Owińska in February 1927.
keywords in Polish:
psychoanaliza, historia psychoterapii, Witkacy
keywords in English:
psychoanalysis, history of psychotherapy, Witkacy
departmental parameterization:
15
affiliation:
Wydział Lekarski : Zakład Psychoterapii Zaburzeń Nerwicowych