Erwin Wexberg

(Leopold) Erwin Wexberg (born February 12, 1889 in Vienna , Austria; † January 10, 1957 in Washington, DC , USA) was an Austrian - American psychiatrist , neurologist and representative of individual psychology .

Life

Wexberg grew up as the youngest child of the sales representative Leopold Wechsberg and his wife Anna, b. Heilberg, with two sisters in Vienna. His father came from the small forest village of Oberkurzwald near Bielitz in Austrian Silesia , today's Międzyrzecze Górne near Bielsko-Biała , near the Czech-Polish border.

Wexberg graduated from high school in 1908. A three-year military service followed. When choosing a career, he had to choose between a conductor and a doctor. Since he did not want to make music his job, he began to study medicine in Vienna in 1908. In the first three winter semesters he voluntarily attended Sigmund Freud's lectures "Lectures on the theory of neuroses and psychotherapy", "Lectures on the theory of neuroses" and "Elementary introduction to psychoanalysis".

His application to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association in 1910 was rejected. After separating from Freud in 1911, Wexberg joined the newly founded association for free psychoanalytic research by Alfred Adler . With Carl Furtmüller and Alexander Neuer, he remained one of Adler's most important medical assistants in the early years and the interwar period.

In 1912, the medical student Wexberg published his first scientific article on the demanding topic of two psychoanalytic theories in the "Journal for Psychotherapy and Medical Psychology". In 1913 he received his doctorate in general medicine at the University of Vienna and specialized in psychiatry. From 1914 he worked as an assistant doctor, later as a senior physician, in the newly opened Jewish mental hospital Maria-Theresien-Schlössel under the direction of the psychiatrist and neurologist Emil Redlich, whose lectures he had attended.

During the First World War he was an assistant doctor in the mental hospital Maria-Theresien-Schlössel, which served the Red Cross as a special hospital and received two medals for bravery for his fearlessness and care in dangerous situations.

In the interwar period he opened a psychiatric practice in Vienna, which he relocated to the spa town of Bad Gastein during the summer months because of his wife's rheumatic complaints . He belonged to the working group of individual psychological doctors and was chairman of the working group of advisors and educators until 1932. He was a member of the group of socialist individual psychologists who maintained a medical individual psychological outpatient clinic on Kleeblattgasse in Vienna. In the years from 1920 to 1934 Wexberg gave regular lectures at the Vienna adult education centers .

After the Austrian Civil War and the beginning of the Austro-Fascist state , he followed an appointment in 1934 and emigrated to the USA, where he obtained his American doctorate and worked at various hospitals in New Orleans and Newton , Connecticut . He spent the Second World War from 1942 to 1945 as a volunteer in the Medical Corps of the US Army and headed the psychiatric departments of various military clinics.

After the war he ran a number of clinics as director of the newly created Bureau of Mental Hygiene of the Health Department in Washington DC. In this capacity he founded a clinic for alcoholics and became its director in 1948 when it became independent as the municipal alcohol rehabilitation center. In 1950 he became a member of the American Psychiatric Association .

plant

Wexberg is considered the systematist among the individual psychologists. His publications received international acclaim and in 1934 gave him an appointment to the USA. In 1912 he gave a lecture for the first time on the psychology of fear, a topic with which he dealt throughout his life. He dealt with praxeological questions that were of fundamental importance for the development of individual psychology. In his work on the theory and practice of individual psychology, he placed particular emphasis on developmental psychological and pathological aspects and linked them with considerations on prevention. Wexberg was an honorary member of the German Society for Psychology.

In 1926 he published the Handbuch der Individualpsychologie, for which he was predestined due to his close relationship with clinical psychiatry. In 1928 he published a textbook with the first systematic presentation of Adler's teaching. He made important contributions to the International Journal for Individual Psychology (IZI) .

Publications

• Alfred Adler, Carl Furtmüller, Erwin Wexberg: Healing and Education . JF Bergmann publishing house, Munich 1922.
• Expressions of soul life . Publishing house N. Kampmann, Celle 1925.
• Handbook of Individual Psychology . 2 volumes. JF Bergmann publishing house, Munich 1928.
• The nervous kid . Publisher M. Perles, Vienna 1926.
• Psychological developmental inhibitions . Publisher M. Perles, Vienna 1926.
• Introduction to the psychology of sex life . Publishing house S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1930.
• Individual psychology. A systematic representation . Publishing house S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1930.
• Problem children . Verlag S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 1931.
• Work and community . Hirzel publishing house, Leipzig 1932.
• The scared child . Verlag Am other Ufer, Dresden 1926.
• On the development of individual psychology and other writings . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1991.
• Morality and Mental Health . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998.

literature

• Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 3: S – Z, Register. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 1473.
• Alfred Lévy: Erwin Wexberg - the systematist of individual psychology. In: Alfred Lévy, Gerald Mackenthun (ed.): Gestalten around Alfred Adler. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-8260-2156-8 , pp. 311–322.
• Gerhard Stumm (Ed.): Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy . Springer-Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-211-83818-X .
• Clara Kenner: Erwin Wexberg. In: Der Zerrissene Himmel - Emigration and Exile of the Viennese Individual Psychology. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-45320-9 , pp. 211-213.
• Ulrich Kümmel: Erwin Wexberg: A life between individual psychology, psychoanalysis and neurology . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-40136-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Erwin Wexberg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Personal dictionary of psychotherapy: Erwin Wexberg