40 years of culture and psychiatry

Psychiatry and Culture – Do They Cope? Not as a therapeutic approach as a lifestyle: the lifestyle of the Adolf Jens and Margit Koemeda-Lutz couple. The psychiatrist, writer – a Prague immigrant of German origin from the Sudetenland – and psychotherapist and publicist were looking for a place to hold psychotherapy seminars at the end of the 1970s. Another party interested in the ball of destruction came before the purchase of the castle of Guggenbühl near Andwil, but the son of the Archaeologist, who had emigrated from Prague, continued the search and found what he was looking for in Ermatingen.

Also neglected in 1981, ‘Breitenstein’ was doomed to ruin, but then the little castle became a jewel and a meeting and exchange place for forty years.

How it all began and how it became “conferences, theater, readings, concerts” (hence the subtitle) is what many journalists say in a book just published.

Introduction by Martin Andreas Walser

The book “Breitenstein 1981-2020” is a kind of diary and connects the two thematic areas of the house and the people who moved it and still activate it. In his introduction, Martin Andreas Walser aptly speaks of “circles that open and close”.

It all started with Koemedas’ vision: your home should be a forum for professional exchange. The first twenty years of “Breitenstein” were shaped by a series of specialized conferences. Each summer, experts exchanged ideas during psychotherapy weeks, listened to lectures, attended courses and exercises, discussed and continued their education. Excerpts from the programs are reported in detail in the first of the four parts of the book; A non-reader will browse through it.

But every week there was a literary and musical aperçus in the lower theatre, from a German-Czech literary evening to concerts and readings to a party.

Heavy voices can often be heard: Martin Walser, Hermann Berger, Peter Stam.

Good place for culture

Twenty years later, like their psychotherapy weeks and book projects, the Comidas are tired of the events and dare to do something new. They wanted to express their fondness for literature, music and theater, and to invite people to come and discuss with them.

For another twenty years, the Cellar Theater in Breitenstein has become a small but fine place of culture that is hard to compare to in Thurgau.

Walser and Burger are back, as well as Czech Pavel Kohout and director Fredi M. Murer. In September 2008 Comidas reinterpreted the idea of ​​readings in private homes in Konstanz and Kreuzlingen with “Literary Weekends in Untersee”. Janes Komeda: We wanted to revive the idea of ​​the literary salon. A table with pictures summarizing cultural events from forty years ago.

Moritz Leuenberger says his words

In the third part of the book, neighbors, theater guests and friends of artists have their say: Leopold Huber and Astrid Keeler of See-Burgtheater or former Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger, who wanted to attend a reading of Jaap Ashterberg.

The volume concludes with two essays (dance from the series) on the present and the future: Jens Comeda with a short story, Max von Telzer on human civilization.

Brittenstein 1981-2020, 381st ed., 228 s.