Adrian Leslie Stephen (27 October 1883 – 3 May 1948) was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an author and psychoanalyst, and the younger brother of Thoby Stephen,

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

and

Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...

. He and his wife Karin Stephen became interested in the work of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

, and were among the first British

psychoanalysts PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

Life

Stephen was born in 1883, the youngest of four children of

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g ...

and

Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Life Sir Leslie Stephen came from a distinguished intellect ...

; their father's death in 1904 resulted in the four siblings moving to Bloomsbury, and their house there became the nucleus of the Bloomsbury Group. By his mother's first marriage, he was also a half-brother of

George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...

and

Gerald Duckworth Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937) was an English publisher, who founded the London company that bears his name. Henry James and John Galsworthy were among the firm's early authors. Background and early life D ...

. He was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

. Among his romantic liaisons was his affair with the artist

Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major i ...

, which led to Grant's introduction to Stephen's sister Vanessa Bell, with whom he would eventually have a (rather unusual) romance. Adrian attended

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he took an Ordinary Degree in law and history. In 1914 Stephen married Karin Costelloe, a philosophy graduate, by then Fellow of

Newnham College Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millice ...

and expert on Henri Bergson. The couple had two daughters Ann and Judith Stephen. On the introduction of conscription in 1916 during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Stephen became a conscientious objector, like many other members of the Bloomsbury Group, and, with Costelloe, lived out the remainder of the war working on a farm in Essex. Early in the war he was active in the

Union of Democratic Control The Union of Democratic Control was a British advocacy group, pressure group formed in 1914 to press for a more responsive foreign policy. While not a pacifism, pacifist organisation, it was opposed to military influence in government. World War ...

, then later was Honorary Treasurer of the National Council Against Conscription. Towards the end of the war, Adrian, Karin, James and

Alix Strachey Alix Strachey (4 June 1892 – 28 April 1973), née Sargant-Florence, was an American-born British psychoanalyst and, with her husband, the translator into English of ''The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud''. ...

all became interested in

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

. The Stephens trained medically at the request of

Ernest Jones Alfred Ernest Jones (1 January 1879 – 11 February 1958) was a Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst. A lifelong friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud from their first meeting in 1908, he became his official biographer. Jones was the first En ...

, both being analysed initially by James Glover; they qualified in the late 1920s, Adrian completing his analysis with Ella Freeman Sharpe. In 1936, Stephen decided to recount in detail the ''Dreadnought'' hoax, in which he had taken part a quarter of a century earlier, completing an account published by the

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond (then in Surrey and n ...

. He also became deeply involved in anti-Fascist activity in the Thirties. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Stephen became so angered by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

' brutality and

anti-semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

that he abandoned his pacifist stance of the previous war and volunteered to become an

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

psychoanalyst in 1939, at the age of 57. Active in promoting reforms in the

British Psychoanalytical Society The British Psychoanalytical Society was founded by the British neurologist Ernest Jones as the London Psychoanalytical Society on 30 October 1913. It is one of two organizations in Britain training psychoanalysts, the other being the British ...

in 1942-44 during the Controversial Discussions, he became Scientific Secretary of the Society (1945–47) and took over the job of Editor of the ''

International Journal of Psychoanalysis ''The International Journal of Psychoanalysis'' is an academic journal in the field of psychoanalysis. The idea of the journal was proposed by Ernest Jones in a letter to Sigmund Freud dated 7 December 1918. The journal itself was established in ...

'' from James Strachey in 1946.P King, ''The Freud-Klein Controversies'' (2005) He died in 1948.

List of selected publications

* ''The 'Dreadnought' Hoax'' (1936)

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Bloomsbury and Psychoanalysis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stephen, Adrian 1883 births 1948 deaths People educated at Westminster School, London Stephen-Bell family Bloomsbury Group British conscientious objectors British psychoanalysts LGBT writers from England Virginia Woolf Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Dreadnought hoax

Life

List of selected publications

See also

References

Bibliography

External links