John Carl Flügel (13 June 1884 – 6 August 1955), was a British

experimental psychologist Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

and a practising psychoanalyst.

Training and career

Flügel was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

on 13 June 1884, to a German father and English mother.

Psychoanalytic career and writings

Flügel's book ''Psychoanalytic Study of the Family'' (1921) was acclaimed by Eric Berne for its insights into the

Oedipus complex The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to hav ...

. He also published ''Men and their Motives'' (1934) and ''The Psychology of Clothes'' (1930), the latter continuing to influence thinking on the subject into the 21st century. In ''Man, Morals and Society'' (1945), Flugel charted a movement from

egocentrism Egocentrism is the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to accurately assume or understand any perspective other than one's own. Egocentrism is found across the life span: in infancy, early chi ...

to social awareness by way of what he saw as a hierarchy of expanding loyalties. Reaching back to his old mentor, he also highlighted “the distinction that McDougall has sometimes made between an 'ideal', which is little more than an intellectual assent to a moral proposition, and a 'sentiment', which involves a real mobilisation”.J. C. Flugel, ''Man, Morals and Society'' (1973) p. 67

Marriage and death

In 1913 Flügel married Ingeborg Klingberg, who also became a psychoanalyst. They had one daughter. Flügel died in London on 17 August 1955.

References

* Graham Richards
Flügel, John Carl (1884–1955)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
FLUGEL, John Carl
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007, accessed 30 Jan 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Flugel, John Carl 1884 births 1955 deaths British psychologists British psychoanalysts British Esperantists Parapsychologists Presidents of the British Psychological Society Analysands of Ernest Jones Translators of Sigmund Freud British people of German descent Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Alumni of the University of London Academics of the University of London 20th-century psychologists

Training and career

Psychoanalytic career and writings

Marriage and death

See also

References

Further reading