Eugen Bleuler

Paul Eugen Bleuler was born in Switzerland on 30 April 1857 and trained as a psychiatrist at a time when the vocabulary for mental illness was still forming. He coined schizophrenia, schizoid, autism, depth psychology, and the term "ambivalence" — a word Sigmund Freud singled out as happily chosen. His conceptual work at the Burghölzli clinic in Zurich helped define modern psychiatry. But Bleuler was also a eugenicist whose racist and ableist convictions informed his practice, and he implemented eugenic measures at Burghölzli based on those beliefs. He died on 15 July 1939, leaving a split leg…