Prof. em. Dr. Theodor Abt

Theodor Abt was given the title of Professor of Rural Sociology of ETH Zurich in 1990

Prof. Abt was born on January 16, 1947 and comes from Buenzen AG and Zurich. He earned his degree in agricultural engineering at the ETH Zurich in 1972. Following this, he was responsible for the project on the overall regional development concept for the canton of Uri. (1973-1976) and afterwards for Zurich's mountainous regions (1976-1979). During his ETH Zurich-studies in natural science and economics, he also studied at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, obtaining a diploma in analytical psychology in 1975. Abt's thesis entitled "Development planning without soul?" is an attempt to illustrate that the exterior and interior world are both aspects of one reality and to show that their relationship is interdependent. Some of the material for this work was provided by an analysis of the project leader's own dreams about this project.

Prof. Abt has led this special area of rural sociology at the Institute of Rural Economics since 1979. In 1983 he published his habilitation thesis entitled "Development without loss of soul". Since 1987 his research and teaching have centered on the relationship between people and their environment and he gives regular lectures on the topic of archetypal dreams pertaining to environmental problems. From 1983-1989 Abt was a member of the curatorium of the C. G. Jung Institute and from 1982-1995 its teaching and control analyst. In 1994 he became co-founder of the Research and Teaching Centre for Depth Psychology according to C. G. Jung and M. L. von Franz and member of its first board of directors. He has been working on the Corpus Alchymicum Arabicum research project since 1987.