The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel - The Life Story of a Pioneer Psychoanalyst. Wilhelm Stekel
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and Emotions—The Dinner Speech—A Great Passion—War’s End—Back to Civilian Life
U. S. A. Is Beckoning—New York—Chicago—The Future of Psychoanalysis—Truth in Analysis—Success—Washington, D. C.—My Friend, The Gangster—Stepping on Other People’s Toes
CHAPTER VIII TRAVEL ON THE CONTINENT
Europe—Davos—The Congress on Psychotherapy—Congress in Baden-Baden—Diabetes
CHAPTER IX CHIEF OF THE ACTIVE-ANALYTIC CLINIC
The Psychotherapeutic Clinic—Books on Dream Interpretation—Freud-Stekel—The Challenge of Time—A Mother Fixation—A Manic-Depressive Psychosis—Paris—Brazil
CHAPTER X A REFUGEE FROM THE NAZIS
The Nazis in Austria—Dogs—High Speed Living—Flight from Nazism—London—Illness—An Experiment in Education—Meeting Old Friends—The Outbreak of the War—Epilogue
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Plaque in Commemoration of Dr. Stekel’s Sixtieth Anniversary
As a Young Physician
Dr. Sigmund Freud
Dr. Carl G. Jung of Zurich, Switzerland
First Issue of the Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse
Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse for December, 1911
Dr. Alfred Adler
Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse und Psychotherapie for May-June, 1913
Dr. Emil A. Gutheil
Homeward After Office Hours
Among His Students (1924)
Congress in Baden-Baden
In Conversation with Dr. Heimsoth (Berlin)
Chief of the Active-Analytic Clinic
Wilhelm Stekel, M.D.
On His Voyage to Brazil (Companions Unknown)
Lover of Dogs
On His Flight from Austria. One Last Look Toward His Homeland from Free Switzerland
Rest in Forest (Switzerland)
PREFACE
by
EMIL A. GUTHEIL, M.D.
WHEN AFTER Wilhelm Stekel’s death, his wife, Mrs. Hilda Stekel, bestowed upon me the honor of editing his Autobiography, I soon realized what she meant when she intimated that the manuscript had been written in unusual haste. Much of the material was disorganized. Nevertheless, to one who had long been versed in the distinguished psychologist’s method and who was familiar with many of the details of his personal life, the dramatic force and beauty of his story was consistently apparent.
Wilhelm Stekel was a pioneering psychoanalyst whose prodigious intuition and medical skill had permitted him to compile, study, and interpret the case histories of thousands of patients. When he felt that the sands of his life were running low, he wanted to leave his own “case history” to posterity, particularly to the coming generations of psychotherapists. He was in a hurry. Cataclysmic World War II events were besetting him; a grave illness he well understood was hewing at his gaunt, proud figure. Calmly, but with intense speed, he prepared his record.
There is no doubt that in his decision to write his autobiography Stekel was influenced by Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions. He had always deplored the fact that in world literature only a few autobiographies were sufficiently intimate and frank for the analyst-reader to evaluate the personality of the author involved. Stekel admired the rare courage and brilliant insight of the French philosopher so much that he made a thought-provoking psychological analysis of Rousseau’s personality through his writings.1
Stekel hoped that his own autobiography would be used in a similar way as a source for analytic research. As a brain specialist might will his own brain to medical investigators, so did the author of the ten-volume work on Disorders of the Instincts and Emotions wish to leave the account of his own instincts and emotions for the benefit of the students of psychoanalysis.
Such was the way of the real Stekel. When the great teacher and practitioner was no longer able to instruct in lecture halls or clinics, when he could no longer introduce live patients to demonstrate the intricacies of psychotherapy, he took the one available subject—himself—and posed it in the nude, stripped of every conventional reserve.
In his account of himself Stekel tried hard to be unbiased; however, his success in this respect was little more than that of some of his own patients who submitted prepared