Walter Schindler (psychotherapist)

Walter Schindler (born August 25, 1896 in Breslau , † January 17, 1986 in London ) was one of the pioneers of group psychoanalysis . He founded the approach of analytical group therapy based on the family model.

Stations in life, training, apprenticeship

Born as the son of a Jewish brewery owner in Wroclaw, he served as a medical soldier from 1914 to 1915 after graduating from high school. He then completed a medical degree in Breslau, Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich and trained as a psychoanalyst in Vienna from 1920 to 1926. Wilhelm Stekel was his training analyst. As a result, he completed his training as a specialist in psychiatry in Berlin . In 1930 he opened a practice in Berlin as an analyst. There he also founded and headed a working group that tried to bridge the differences between the various schools of depth psychology (according to Freud , Adler , CG Jung ).

In 1938 this working group was suspected of communist activities. Schindler was questioned by the Gestapo , but released on the intervention of a former patient. He was forced to emigrate to London . There he worked analytically with refugees until he could speak sufficient English. The attempt to establish the Berlin working group in England also failed.

From 1945 to 1950 Schindler was a lecturer in medical psychology at University College and worked as a psychoanalytic advisor at Marylebone Hospital in London. From 1946 - in constant dialogue with SH Foulkes - Schindler's group model was created.

From 1951 onwards, Schindler regularly led analytical self-awareness groups at the Lindau Psychotherapy Weeks and was increasingly invited to German, Dutch and Spanish universities - for lectures, lectures and as group leader. In 1971 he was appointed to the Royal College of Psychiatry , in 1980 an anthology of his essays was published in German and 1985 in Spanish. In 1986 he died of heart failure, almost 90 years old, but still active and active in the last years of his life.

Schindler's acceptance is still unbroken today. Important training institutions use his model, for example the GAG (Munich), the working group for the application of psychoanalysis in groups (Göttingen) or the Tyrolean regional association for psychotherapy .

Group therapy based on the family model

Walter Schindler assumes that the group members recognize the primary group of their own family in the course of therapy . Behavior learned early on from the family of origin is blindly and stereotypically transferred into the present. The leader embodies authority and is seen as a father figure, while the group is experienced in toto as a mother. The group participants connect with each other with feelings of sibling. As part of the transfer , the analysis of the individual with his or her life story is initiated in the group. Cohesion is required and encouraged by the group so that a feeling of unity can arise. The group leader as the symbolic father figure of the group initially embodies authority, but this is reduced in the course of the process in favor of democratic teamwork.

German-language publications

Moments of danger in group analytical theory and technology. Group Therapy and Group Dynamics 5 (1972): 237-244
Borderliner Syndrome: A Sign of Our Time. Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychoanalysis 25 (1979): 363-375
About some different points of view regarding psychoanalytically oriented group therapy. Group Psychotherapy and Group Dynamics 14 (1979): 16-30
Analytical group therapy based on the family model. Texts on the group from three decades, ed. by Dieter Sandner. Reinhardt, Munich 1980.
Wilhelm Stekel: Active psychoanalysis: seen from an eclectic perspective. Compiled, come, supplemented with own cases, ed. by Walter Schindler. Huber, Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna 1980
A life for the group. Experience of a first generation group therapist. In: Kutter (Ed.), Methods and Theories of Group Psychotherapy, Stuttgart, Bad Canningen 1985, 47-68

proof

↑ Stumm / Pritz et al .: Personenlexikon der Psychotherapie , Vienna, New York 2005, p. 424ff.
^ Pritz / Vykoukal: Group psychoanalysis. Vienna 2003 (2nd edition), p. 25.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Schindler, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British group analyst of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH	August 25, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH	17th January 1986
Place of death	London

[1] Stumm / Pritz et al .: Personenlexikon der Psychotherapie , Vienna, New York 2005, p. 424ff.

[2] Pritz / Vykoukal: Group psychoanalysis. Vienna 2003 (2nd edition), p. 25.