User:Curmudgeonchs/Wheelis, Alan

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Wheelis, Alan

Allen Wheelis (1915- June 14, 2007) was a noted psychoanalyst and author, based in San Francisco. His childhood was marred by family traumas which shadowed his life, his work and his writings. He published 15 books; all are dark and sometimes disturbing, but his memoirs and novels are unfailingly illuminating and ultimately affirmative of the human spirit.

LIFE: Much of the information about his life which follows is adapted from a 2007 article by Chuck Squatriglia of the San Francisco Chronicle. Alan Wheelis was born in 1915 in Marion, La., and grew up in San Antonio. His childhod was shaped by poverty, a domineering father, and an intensely needy mother. Wheelis's efforts to come to terms with his dysfunctional family led to two acclaimed memoirs: "The Life and Death of My Mother" (1992) and "The Listener: A Psychoanalyst Examines His Life" (1999).

Alan Wheelis was 5 when his father contracted tuberculosis and spent the next four years bedridden, dying when Alan was 9. The boy became the focus of his mother's life, and her emotional dependence on him only deepened when Wheelis' older sister left home for college. Alan Wheelis left home to attend Louisiana State University and the University of Texas in Austin, where he graduated in 1937.He subsequently graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1943 and was certified in psychology. He served in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer in the South Pacific from 1943 until 1946. After World War II, Dr. Wheelis studied at the Menninger School of Psychiatry in Topeka, Kan., and worked at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Mass. He underwent further training at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, before moving in 1954 to San Francisco, where he remained in private practice until his death in a San Francisco hospital, June 14, 2007, at the age of 91. Dr. Wheelis is survived by his wife, Ilse K. Wheelis; his children Mark Wheelis, Victoria Jenkins and Joan Wheelis; seven grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

WORK: In addition to the 15 books listed in the BIBLIOGRAPHY below, Wheelis wrote articles for Commentary, the New Yorker, and various professional journals. His first book, "The Quest for Identity," was published in 1959, and his last, "The Way We Are," was published in August, 2006.

"He was a writer and a poet at heart," said his wife, Ilse Wheelis. "He had a pessimistic outlook on the human condition, but he also celebrated it. He believed people could find happiness."

BIBLIOGRAPHY: books by Alan Wheelis The Quest for Identity (1959)

The Seeker (1960)

The End of the Modern Age (1971)

The Desert (1971)

How People Change (1974)

The Moralist (1974)

On Not Knowing How to Live (1975)

The Scheme of Things (1980)

Doctor of Desire	(a novel; 1988)

The Path Not Taken (1990)

The Life and Death of my Mother (1992)

The Way Things Are (a novel; 1994)

The Listener: A Psychoanalyst Examines His Life (1999)

The Illusioneless Man (2001)

The Way We Are (2006)