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Erwin W. Straus: A Research Guide: Home

This guide introduces and contains resources relating to Erwin W. Straus, whose personal library (the Erwin W. Straus Alcove) and Archive are located within the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center.

Erwin W. Straus

Photo Credit: Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Erwin Straus Collection. [n.d.]. Erwin W. Straus Portrait. [Photograph].

Erwin W. Straus, specialist in phenomenological psychology and existential psychiatry, was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1891. A student of academic medicine, he was educated in Switzerland and Germany. After serving in the German army during World War I, Straus continued his studies under Karl Bonhoeffer, at the Charite Hospital in Berlin. During the 1920s, Straus became interested in phenomenology, following scholars such as Edmund Husserl, Ludwig Binswanger, V.E. von Gebsattel, Juergen Zutt, and Eugene Minkowski. Together they formed a group and laid the groundwork for European psychiatry after World War II. On March 15, 1920, he married Gertrude, known as Trudi, and the two remained together until his death fifty-five years later. Straus left Germany to teach at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, in 1938. He maintained his position there for six years, but from 1944 onward he focused on clinical psychology, research, adn writing. His primary interest was on the human senses. Straus's final post was at the Veteran Affairs Hospital in Lexington, Virginia. He died in 1975, regarded as one of the most influential men of his field.

from Erwin W. Straus Collection. Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center. https://archives.library.duq.edu/repositories/4/resources/42.

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This Guide Created By

This LibGuide originally created by Matthew A. Jones, MLIS, 2019.

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