Richard Arwed Pfeifer – a pioneer of ‘medical pedagogy’ and an opponent of Paul Schröder

Abstract

Richard Arwed Pfeifer (1877–1957) was one of the initiators and foster fathers of the renowned child-psychiatric and special needs education workgroup at Leipzig University under Paul Schröder (1873–1941) in the 1920s and 1930s. This paper is an account of their dispute concerning the interrelations between child and adolescent psychiatry and special needs education, as well as their disagreement about whether adolescent psychopaths should be admitted to specialized child psychiatric wards or elsewhere. Moreover, Pfeifer questioned the practical relevance of the separation of constitutional and environmentally-based psychopathy and fought eugenic research, which he found incompatible with the ethics of his profession as a remedial teacher and child psychiatrist.