Roberto Assagioli

Roberto Assagioli (1888 to 1974) was an Italian psychiatrist who founded psychosynthesis, a movement within humanistic and transpersonal psychology that is still developed by therapists today. Born in Venice and raised in a household that used Italian, French and English, he moved to Florence as a teenager, took his medical degree in 1910 with a thesis on psychoanalysis, and was among the first advocates of psychoanalysis in Italy. He studied for two years at the Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich under Eugen Bleuler, where he met Carl Jung, and he was a member of the Freudian Society of Zurich. By 1911 he was already questioning the limits of Freudian theory. His own approach described psychic life as a struggle between many conflicting forces and a unifying centre, and stressed progressive integration of the personality and its link with a Higher Self. Later work applied the method to psychotherapy, medicine, education and organizational and community development.