The Autobiography of
WILHELM STEKEL
THE LIFE STORY OF A PIONEER PSYCHOANALYST
Edited by
EMIL A. GUTHEIL, M.D.
With an Introduction by
MRS. HILDA STEKEL, London
Fools they that die for some dead past in vain!
All he once lost, the wise man wins again . . .
WILHELM STEKEL
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Wilhelm Stekel
Wilhelm Stekel on 18th March 1868 in Boiany, Bukovina, in present-day Ukraine.
Stekel was a physician and psychologist. He was one of Sigmund Freud's earliest followers and is credited along with Freud as having founded the first psycho-analytical society. However, Stekel and Freud eventually fell out and their vision of psychoanalysis took different paths.
Stekel made several important contributions to psychoanalytic theory. His work on dream symbolism was acknowledged in Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, as having taught Freud 'to form a truer estimate of the extent and importance of symbolism in dreams'. Stekel also explored the notion of obsessional doubt, saying 'In anxiety the libido is transformed into organic and somatic symptoms; in doubt, the libido is transformed into intellectual symptoms. The more intellectual someone is, the greater will be the doubt component of the transformed forces. Doubt becomes pleasure sublimated as intellectual achievement.'
On the theory of fetishism and perversion, Stekel contrasted what he called "normal fetishes" from extreme interests, saying "They become pathological only when they have pushed the whole love object into the background and themselves appropriate the function of a love object, e.g., when a lover satisfies himself with the possession of a woman's shoe and considers the woman herself as secondary or even disturbing and superfluous.”
As well as being an innovator in therapeutic technique, Stekel produced many papers and books on the subject, including Sexual Root of Kleptomania (1911), Compulsion and Doubt (1922), and Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty (1929).
Stekel suffered from prostate problems and diabetic gangrene. He put an end to the pain by taking an overdose and committing suicide. Stekel died on 25th June 1940.
PLAQUE IN COMMEMORATION OF DR. STEKEL’S SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE By Emil A. Gutheil, M.D.
INTRODUCTION By Hilda Stekel, London
Introduction—Early Childhood—Books—The Shoemaker’s Apprentice—My Family—The High School—First Love—Between Materialism and Idealism
Vienna—Military Service—Acute Illness—The Pacifist Movement—The Duel—The Loss of a Friend—Engagement
CHAPTER III PRACTICING MEDICINE
Work with Krafft-Ebing—The Military Hospital—Looking for a Job—Opening of Practice and Marriage—Joys and Woes of General Practice—Marital Clouds—Flight to the Mountains—Home Again—Children’s Songs
CHAPTER IV INTRODUCTION TO FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
How I Met Freud—Analysis with Freud—Oh, These Doctors—Working with Freud—Nervous Anxiety States—The Growth of Psychoanalysis—Decline of Marriage
CHAPTER V THE BREAK WITH FREUD
Congress in Weimar—The Vienna Circle—Anxiety—Adler’s Secession—Separation
