Fritz Künkel

Fritz Künkel ( Friedrich Wilhelm Künkel ; born September 6, 1889 in Stolzenberg near Landsberg an der Warthe in West Prussia , today Różanki, Lebus Voivodeship , Poland; † April 2, 1956 in Los Angeles ) was a German psychiatrist and one of the leading representatives of individual psychology in Germany.

Life

Künkel grew up on his parents' estate. He was raised by private tutors in the first years of school. His brother Hans , who was seven years his junior , became a teacher and individual psychologist. Künkel attended high school in Landsberg an der Warthe. From 1907 to 1914 he studied medicine in Munich . During the First World War he was used as a field doctor on the Western Front from 1914 to 1917, where he lost his left arm. As a result, he could only practice his medical profession to a limited extent and therefore turned to psychiatry. In 1919 he received his doctorate at the University of Berlin with the text The Childhood Development of Schizophrenics . In Munich he met Alfred Adler and Leonhard Seif . A local individual psychology group was founded there around 1920 and an educational counseling center in 1922.

In 1924 Künkel settled down as a neurologist in Berlin and founded a local individual psychological group. Within a short time he knew how to make individual psychology known in Berlin through lectures in schools etc. As with Adler in Vienna, courses in individual psychology and summer holidays were organized in Berlin. Künkel gave lectures abroad, at individual psychological congresses and was co-editor of the international journal for individual psychology since 1925 . For the individual psychological institutes, he created training regulations with theoretical lessons and practical exercises. From 1928 he was on the board of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy . Under the influence of Marxist individual psychologists like Manès Sperber , there was a separation within the individual psychological group in Berlin. When this split into two associations, the Künkel couple also belonged to two different associations, with Fritz Künkel joining the non-Marxist one.

Until the beginning of the war in 1939, he worked at the German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy , which was taken over by the National Socialists. After a trip to the USA in the summer of 1939, Künkel never returned to Germany. He lived in Los Angeles, where he founded his own institute, lectured, looked after patients and wrote books.

plant

Although an Adlerian, Künkel emancipated himself with his own theories and founded, if not a school, at least a separate direction in depth psychology, the "characterology". According to Handlbauer, Künkel was one of Adler's religiously motivated employees who tried to compensate for the philosophical weakness of individual psychology with religious-philosophical aspects. This led to a break with Adler in the early thirties.

“ This book is intended to serve a dual purpose. Firstly, it tries to give the general practitioner and medical student the knowledge of modern psychology that he absolutely needs for his daily work. Secondly, however, it tries to advance across the school disputes of the various psychotherapeutic systems towards a unified understanding of both mental illnesses and healing processes. "

- Fritz Künkel : Fundamentals of practical mental medicine. 1935, foreword

Publications

• with Herbert Seng: Psychotherapy and pastoral care. On the question of religious healings (= doctor and pastor. Ed. By Carl Gunther Schweitzer . Issue 1). Railway, Schwerin 1925.
• [Applied] character studies. 6 volumes. Hirzel, Leipzig 1928–1935.
• Working on the character. The more recent psychotherapy in its application to education, self-education and soul guidance. Railway, Schwerin 1929.
• Youth Character Studies. Theory and Practice of Growing Up. Railway, Schwerin 1930.
• Basics of political character studies. Junker and Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1931.
• Crisis letters. The relationships between economic crisis and character crisis. Railway, Schwerin 1932.
• Fundamentals of practical psychology. Hippocrates, Stuttgart 1935.
• with Elisabeth Künkel: The upbringing of your children. Help book for parents and educators. Falken, Berlin 1936.
• That we. The basic concepts of we psychology. Railway, Schwerin 1939.
• with Roy E. Dickerson: How character develops. A psychological interpretation. Scribner, New York 1940.
• In search of maturity. An inquiry into psychology, religion, and self-education. Scribner, New York 1943.
  • Struggle for maturity. An investigation into psychology, religion and self-education. Railway, Constance 1955.
• with Ruth Gardner: What do you advise? A guide to the art of counseling. Washburn, New York 1946.
• Creation continues. A psychological interpretation of the first gospel. Scribner, New York 1947.
  • Creation goes on. A Psychological Examination of the Gospel of Matthew. Railway, Constance 1957.
• My dear ego. A look in the mirror. Pilgrim Press, Boston 1947.

literature

• Peter Sandmann:  Künkel, Fritz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 221 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Bernhard Handlbauer: The history of the development of the individual psychology of Alfred Adler. Geyer Edition, Vienna / Salzburg 1984.
• Michael Gregor Kölch: IV. The Berlin individual psychology . In: Michael Gregor Kölch: Theory and Practice of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Berlin 1920–1935. The diagnosis of “psychopathy” in the field of tension between psychiatry, individual psychology and politics. 2006 (med. Dissertation, FU Berlin, 2002), urn : nbn: de: kobv: 188-fudissthesis000000002422-6 , pp. 259–319.
• Josef Rattner : Fritz Künkel. In: Klassiker der Psychoanalyse , Beltz / Psychollgie Verlags Union, Weinheim 1995, ISBN 3-621-27285-2 , pp. 467-488.
• Sabine Siebenhüner: Fritz Künkel's contribution to the individual psychological theory of neuroses. In: Gestalten around Alfred Adler. Pioneers of individual psychology . Ed .: A. Lévy & G. Mackenthun, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-8260-2156-8 , pp. 133–155.

Web links

• Literature by and about Fritz Künkel in the catalog of the German National Library