Paul Parin

Paul Parin (20 September 1916 – 18 May 2009) was a Swiss psychoanalyst, author and ethnologist.

He was born in Polzela (German: Heilenstein), near Celje, Slovenia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a family of assimilated Jews. He studied medicine in Zagreb, Graz and Zürich. In Zürich, he met Goldy Matthèy-Guenet who became his wife. At the end of World War II, the two travelled to the liberated zone in south-east Slovenia, where they volunteered as physicians in the units of the partisan resistance. After the War, the two moved back to Zürich, where Parin founded a psychoanalytic seminar. In the 1950s, he travelled to Africa with his wife and Fritz Morgenthaler. Together with George Devereux, Parin became the co-founder of the ethnopsychoanalysis.

In 1992, he received the prestigious Erich Fried Prize for his literary achievements.

He died in Zürich, aged 92.