Alphonse Maeder, a physician specializing in psychiatry and psychotherapy, was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland on September 11, 1882, and died in Zürich on January 27, 1971.

The bilingual son of a Swiss German watch-maker, he began to study medicine at Berne in 1901 and continued his studies in Zürich and Berlin. In 1903 he made the acquaintance of the zoologist and philosopher Hans Driesch, who had already integrated Aristotelian entelechy into his neo-vitalist philosophy.

From 1906 to 1910 Maeder worked in Zürich as assistant physician to Eugen Bleuler and Carl Gustav Jung, who introduced him to psychoanalysis. He attended the 1910 Nuremberg congress.

From 1911 to 1918 he worked as a therapist in Dr. Bircher-Benner's sanatorium before opening a private practice as a psychotherapist in Zürich, where he worked almost until his death.

Beginning in 1906, he published psychoanalytic works in German:...