Alfred Appelt

1970-1947

Alfred Appelt, a speech pathologist, applied notions of Adlerian psychology when designing therapy for his clients. He, along with Emil Froeschels, Leopold Stein and Karl Rothe applied principles of Adler’s Individual Psychology to the treatment of stuttering.

Appelt received his doctorate in 1930 from the University of Munich. His dissertation was entitled: The development and practical implementation of the therapeutic influence on children with language disorders in special schools in Germany. Appelt was a student of Alfred Adler and a member of an Individual Psychology group in Munich that met between 1919 and 1929.

Appelt’s Individual Psychology application to stuttering was based on the assumption that the symptoms of speech inhibition required changes in the parts of the personality of the stutterer that caused the stuttering symptoms. Appelt’s treatment involved discovering and eliminating the underlying psychological difficulties of the stuttering child.

Henry Freund, a patient of Appelt’s, described Appelt’s treatment as being based on the notion of stuttering as “a protective device to conceal the inner weaknesses of the person” (see Van Riper’s article on Freund in Journal of Fluency Disorders, 1984.)

References, arranged chronologically

Appelt, A. (1911, 1920, 1929, 1930, 1945, 2019) The real cause of stammering and its permanent cure: A treatise on Psycho-Analytical Lines. Methuen & Co.

Coriat, I. (1912): Review of the book Stammering and its permanent cure by A. Appelt. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 7, 2, 150–151.

Appelt, A. (1914) Progress in stuttering treatment. In A. Adler & C. Furtmuller. (Eds.) Healing and education, medical, and educational work of the Association for Individual Psychology.

Appelt, A. (1926) The stuttering child.

Appelt, A. (1945) Stammering and its permanent cure: A treatise on Individual-Psychological lines. Methuen & Co, London.

Appelt, A. (2019) The real cause of stammering and its permanent cure: A treatise on Psycho-Analytical Lines. Forgotten Books.

Van Riper, C. (1984) Henry Freund: 1896-1982. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 9, 2, 93-102.