The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel - The Life Story of a Pioneer Psychoanalyst - Wilhelm Stekel

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the masochistic exhibitionist Rousseau, whose memoirs were extraordinarily revealing because they constituted a form of self-exposure and self-chastisement. The student of psychoanalysis can see in Stekel’s notes how many of his own complexes remained obscure to him, can detect his unresolved narcissism, his overcompensated feelings of inadequacy; will smile when he reads that the man who was a master in ferreting out other people’s repressions believed that he had hardly any himself. Then there is Stekel’s failure to recognize his affect-heavy attitude toward his teacher, Freud, upon whom he tried in vain to transfer his own father-complex.

      But the analytical reader will also appreciate in Stekel the great clinician and psychologist, the erudite man of letters, the warm-hearted lover of the arts. To the mind of this editor come the words of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, the Swiss poet whom Stekel liked to quote:

      “I’m not a book that’s filled with clever fiction;

      I am a human heart with all its contradiction.”2

      Stekel was both persevering and impatient; shrewd and naive. Was it an accident that it was he who discovered the principle of bipolarity of human emotions?3

      Stekel’s Autobiography is more than a personal narrative. It breathes the air of old Vienna and recaptures the charm of the cosmopolitan Europe that was. It throws an interesting light upon an early phase of the psychoanalytic movement in which the author played a prominent part. He describes the intimate gatherings of Freud, Alfred Adler, and himself where they discussed ways and means to introduce psychoanalysis to medicine. Later as co-editor with Freud of Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse he writes of the search for landmarks in a new field, of the discouragements and disagreements, and finally of world-wide acceptance of their theories.

      The editor has tried to select with discrimination those details of Stekel’s intimate life which he deemed essential for the understanding of the author’s personality. Whenever the blue pencil has been wielded, it has been done with full respect for the author’s text and theme.

      In the Autobiography, in addition to photos, various members of Stekel’s school are briefly introduced as well as miscellaneous biographical material presented by the editor.

      1 “Jean Jacques Rousseau. Analysis of an Exhibitionist.” Chapter XXV of Stekel’s Psychosexueller Infantilismus, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Vienna, 1922.

      2 “Ich bin kein ausgeklügelt Buch;

      Ich bin ein Mensch mit seinem Widerspruch.”

      3 This psychological phenomenon was rediscovered by the Swiss, Eugene Bleuler, who termed it “ambivalence,” the name by which Freud introduced it into psychoanalysis.

      INTRODUCTORY NOTE

       by

      MRS. HILDA STEKEL

      London

      MY HUSBAND, Wilhelm Stekel, ended his life voluntarily in London on June 25, 1940. Thus, suffering humanity lost one of its great healers. In his farewell letter, my husband asked me to publish his Autobiography. He suggested that I shorten the manuscript and write a last chapter dealing with his illness and death.

      The publication of this Autobiography, a matter so close to my heart, was delayed by the intricate events of world history. I am, therefore, pleased and deeply touched because my husband’s last wish is now fulfilled; and I am most grateful to the American Journal of Psychotherapy and to the Liveright Publishing Corporation for their readiness to honor the deceased by publishing his last work.1

      Within the covers of this small volume is the essence of Wilhelm Stekel’s work and personality. The book also renders a service to the public, to the author’s many pupils, followers, readers, colleagues, and patients in all parts of the world by informing them of the real reasons for his suicide, the motives of which have been misinterpreted by some newspapers and scientific journals and by many individuals.

      I asked Dr. Emil A. Gutheil of New York City to undertake the difficult task of revising my husband’s Autobiography. I felt that I was too close to the subject to treat it with the desired editorial impartiality. Dr. Gutheil, as one of Dr. Stekel’s first pupils and most faithful friends, appeared best suited for the assignment. I thank him on this occasion for his splendid achievement.

      Dr. Stekel began writing the story of his life while he was still in Vienna. He had finished his Technique of Analytical Psychotherapy2 and felt an urge to conclude his literary work with an autobiography. He hoped that by publishing a frank and unbiased account of his own life he might be able to contribute some constructive ideas to the problems of education, mental hygiene, and the prophylaxis of nervous disorders.

      Three days before the war started I returned from Norway to England. I had visited my daughter, Dr. Erica Wendelbo, who had gone to Norway after we had fled from Vienna, and married there. I joined my husband who was in the country at this time. Writing his autobiography offered my husband a welcome stimulation and helped him to weather the tense atmosphere of these first weeks after the outbreak of the war.

      Our plans were unsettled. We had contemplated a long stay in the country. However, when my husband finished his autobiography he could not endure country life any longer and returned to London. He stayed at the hotel where we had lived upon our arrival in England. Today, I regret that we had no chance to have a home and that it was his fate to die “homeless” in more than one sense.

      I could not accompany him to London because I was convalescing after a serious operation and was in poor physical and mental condition. My aged mother and I lived with a friend, Miss Elna Kallenberg, now Mrs. F. L. Lucas, in Cambridge. Elna’s kindness and companionship were indeed helpful as we strove to endure the depressing and uncertain lot of refugees. I am fulfilling my husband’s wish when I thank our “Guardian Angel” in this way.

      I also take this opportunity to thank Mr. Fritz Mumenthaler of Berne, Switzerland, who, by storing my husband’s precious library, saved it from destruction. I owe it to this noble-minded man, who previously was unknown to us, that my husband’s library is now available to me. Incidentally, it was Elna and our young friend, Dr. Karl Merkel, who first rescued the library by sorting out the enormous amount of books we had and sending them to Switzerland. In Vienna, all of Stekel’s books and manuscripts were destroyed as were the books of Freud, Adler, and many other authors.

      My husband was happy when he was able to resume his practice and continue his other activities in London. The uneventful months of the “phony war” found him in relatively good spirits. He borrowed music from a lending library and spent many hours at a piano which belonged to the hotel. It was remarkable how easily he was able to adapt himself to circumstances, and how patiently he endured the limitations imposed upon him by his diabetes and prostatic trouble. His vital energies, though, were reduced noticeably by the harrowing experience of emigration as well as by an acute intestinal disease which attacked him shortly after his arrival in London. He aged rapidly thereafter. His diabetes grew worse and he was forced to take insulin to keep it under control.

      One day, in February or March, 1940, I was called urgently to the hotel. I found my husband in bed, completely apathetic. I was told that he was in a hypoglycemic coma, probably because he had injected too large a dose of insulin. I was surprised that he refused the orange juice we offered and that it had to be forced into him. Soon the glucose had its effect and he recovered. I suspect that this was his first suicide attempt—made with conscious or unconscious intent. He had at that time diabetic gangrene of the foot which troubled him a great deal. Those who know how much my husband loved long walks will appreciate the hardship such suffering brought upon him. As a physician he knew, of course, what this condition meant.

      In April, Norway was overrun by the Nazis, and I worried about my daughter who lived in Elverum where the first battles took place. My husband was very much upset about reports of the Nazi occupation of this area, and his foot condition grew markedly worse. When, after two anxious months, we received the news that Erica was alive, our relief was wonderful.

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