Wilhelm Stekel quotes

Wilhelm Stekel was an Austrian psychiatrist and one of the early followers of Sigmund Freud. A pioneering figure in psychoanalysis, he contributed significantly to the understanding of neurosis and sexuality. He played a crucial role in the development and popularization of psychoanalytic theories. Here are 17 of his quotes:

Truth is not always the best basis for happiness. There are certain lies which may constitute a far better and more secure foundation of happiness. There are people who perish when their eyes are opened.

Wilhelm Stekel

Many an attack of depression is nothing but the expression of regret at having to be virtuous.

Wilhelm Stekel

People who do not understand themselves have a craving for understanding - a thing which is rather surmised and never spoken than known and clothed in words.

Wilhelm Stekel

Love at first sight is a revival of an infantile impression. The first love object reappears in a different disguise.

Wilhelm Stekel

Anxiety is fear of one's self.

Wilhelm Stekel

Many times I had spoken about "mental bipolarity" and proved that our affects are bipolar. Desire and disgust, love and hate, will-to-power and will-to-submission, are composed of negative and positive parts like the current of electricity. My contention was that any human affect has its own counterpart. Later Bleuler described this fact as "ambivalence," a term that was accepted by everybody, whereas previously they had laughed at my discovery, and given me the nickname "Stekel with his Bipolarity."

Wilhelm Stekel

Experience shows that this transference very soon becomes the source of resistance. Love is only a seeking for love in return, Do, ut des [I give, that thou shalt give]. If the patient notices that love is not given in return or that it has not reached that degree which he expected, defiance enters in place of the love, which in turn manifests itself as active resistance.

Wilhelm Stekel

Candor is always a double-edged sword; it may heal or it may separate.

Wilhelm Stekel

We had many interesting conversations and he introduced me to his young wife. He confided to me that he had married her because she was a fanatical atheist. Atheism was the main topic of their conversations. Such fervid atheism is usually a screen for repressed religion. The truly convinced atheist does not emphasize his atheism. He does not talk about it and is careful to avoid blasphemies. The man was interested in dreams and each morning he related several of his dreams. They were full of religious symbols. I was cautious not to reveal to him the meaning of his dreams; such off-hand analyses are always dangerous.... The banker did not want to be disturbed in his supposed atheism.... His atheism was a reaction formation established upon an ineradicable religious belief.

Wilhelm Stekel

There are people who perish when their eyes are opened.

Wilhelm Stekel

An intense, unyielding stubbornness hides beneath an apparent obedience.

Wilhelm Stekel

Defiance is the reaction against activity (aggression) of the environment.

Wilhelm Stekel

Obedience is the giving up of the resistance; obstinacy the setting up of fresh resistances.

Wilhelm Stekel

The child manifests the same reactions of defiance and obedience. The child, too, can hide his stubbornness behind an excessive docility.

Wilhelm Stekel

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

Wilhelm Stekel