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TEACHING PSYCHOLOGY TO JURISTS:
Initiatives and Reactions Prior to World War I

Annette Mu¨lberger
Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona

This article deals with the kind of psychology suggested for jurists that was thought
to be necessary training for their work. An analysis of the content of two textbooks
by Otto Lipmann and Karl Marbe reveals that such teaching activity involves two
different levels of historical analysis. On the one hand, it relates to experimental
research done by psychologists on law-related issues; on the other, it concerns the
professional experience psychologists accumulated by acting as expert witnesses in
court. The paper investigates how psychologists presented psychology to jurists,
which methods and theories they suggested as being essential for juristic training
and professional performance, and whether jurists appreciated these materials and
efforts. These inquiries are embedded in the debate on the history of criminal
psychology, taking into account the European, particularly the German, context. The
author shows how specific historical developments led to an increased exchange
between experimental psychology and criminal law during the first decades of the
20th century.

Keywords: criminal psychology, textbooks, Lipmann, Marbe, forensic psychology

In 1908, German psychologist Otto Lipmann welcomed “the fact that jurists,
particularly criminalists, have increasingly begun to count psychology among the
auxiliary disciplines of law” (Lipmann, 1908, p. 1; all translations are mine).

What interest did jurists have in psychology and in introducing training in
psychology into their curriculum? Was it part of a general trend or attitude toward
psychology at the time? What sort of psychology did they have in mind? What did
they expect from psychological expertise, and were psychologists able to meet
those expectations? I address these questions in the present article.

A long tradition links psychology to law. Already toward the end of the 18th
century, Karl Von Eckardtshausen had declared the necessity of psychological
knowledge for the task of judging crimes, and Johann Christian Gottlieb Schauman
proposed ideas for a criminal psychology (Sieverts & Schneider, 1977).
Although initially philosophers were interested in the field and Kant argued that
they should be the ones to deal with the psychological problems involved,
criminal psychology became a field of expertise in medicine (psychiatry).

By the close of the 19th century, newly formed scientific psychology had developed, reviving in turn philosophers’ claim to the field: philosophers with a specialization in psychology. This article cannot cover the entire story, so I concentrate on the period when nascent experimental psychology and criminal law began to converge at the turn of the century and lasting until the outbreak of the First World War, focusing on developments in Europe, mainly Germany, at that time.

The convergence of law and scientific psychology that occurred toward the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century was clearly induced by a relatively small number of scholars on both sides. I deal with some of them, such as psychologists Lipmann, Marbe, and Stern, and jurists Von Liszt, Liepmann, and Reichel. By contextualizing the initiatives taken on both sides, I illuminate the kind of orientation they broadly represent in each of the fields. The proposals these professionals made were not generally greeted without critique. History is always complex; several opinions vie simultaneously to influence public opinion. Thus, it is important also to consider voices raised against the initiatives and projects launched by these scholars if we are to fully understand the discussion that took place.

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