Educated at a school in Czernowitz and the University of Vienna, where he studied medicine, Stekel worked for a time at the Kraft-Ebing clinic while he prepared his doctor's thesis. He produced some papers on psychology before taking a position as a medical journalist with the Neues Wiener Tagblatt in 1901. In 1902, he became one of the founders, together with Freud, Adler, et al, of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Stekel became a pioneer in applying Freud's theories on dreams and fantasies to other fields such as anthropology and literature. As with many of the early followers, Stekel eventually had a falling out with Freud and left the Society. In 1910, he established the Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse, which he edited for a number of years. After World War I, he founded the Organisation of Independent Medically Qualified Analysts. Stekel established the school of 'active analysis' as a form of short-term therapy. Following Hitler's invasion of Austria, Stekel fled to England, but suffering from ill health and depression he committed suicide in 1940. His works include On Infantile Sexuality (1895), The Language of Dreams (1911), The Dreams of Poets (1912), The Depths of the Soul (1921), Conditions of Nervous Anxiety and Their Treatment (1923), A Primer for Mothers (1931), Technique of Analytical Psychotherapy (1939) and the posthumous works The Interpretation of Dreams: New Developments and Technique (1943) and The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel (1950). |
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