Curing Society by Better Education. Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel (1868‐1940) on Parental Influences in the Causation and Prevention of Compulsion Neuroses

Abstract

Until recently, the nurture paradigm was dominant in educational thought. Parental attitudes were considered to be the major causes for character development in their offspring, as well as for different kinds of mental illnesses. During most of the twentieth century, medical doctors and other professionals tried their best to convince educators of the seriousness of their tasks in raising children. This article discusses the ideas of one of these doctors, Wilhelm Stekel (1868‐ 1940), on the obsessive‐compulsive disorder. This pioneer psychoanalyst explained obsessive‐ compulsive disorder as caused by a traumatic experience in childhood: the shattering of parental authority. Persons suffering from this type of neurosis proved rather difficult to cure, which led Stekel to the idea that education should provide the solution. Among the depth‐ psychologists of the twentieth century, be stands out as “the educator of the parents”, because of his numerous publications devoted to the prevention of neuroses through the illumination of popular pedagogical thought.