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Sonia Wachstein

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Sonia Wachstein is an Austrian psychotherapist, social worker, and writer. She was born in October of 1907, in Vienna, Austria, and died in New York City, New York, in August of 2001.[1]

Early and Family Life

Sonia was the daughter of Bernhard Wachstein, a well-known historian, bibliographer, and genealogist,[2]: 92  and Marie Wachstein, as well as the sister of Maximillian Wachstein.[3] Bernhard Wachstein was the director of the Library of the Kultusgemeinde, the Jewish community of Vienna.[4] She grew up in the western part of Leopoldstadt where there were few Jews.[5] However, her family was consciously Jewish and attended salons with Jews which included aspiring and well established personalities in science, arts, music and literature. As a child Wachstein recalls sitting at the children's table with Hilde Spiel who noted she did not like women who talked to much (she was pointing at Wachstein's mother).[2]: 92  In her early years, Sonia was homeschooled by her mother.[1]

Education and Occupation

She joined the Socialist Workers' Youth and later the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP).[6]: 28  She later withdrew from actively working in the SDAP due to its antisemitic sentiments, although it was the only major Austrian party that was not programmatically antisemitic.[6]: 29  However, like her Jewish contemporaries, she was caught off guard by the Anschluss in March 1938. She had visited a friend in Palestine in the summer of 1937 and declined his marriage proposal because she did not want to leave Austria.[6]: 34–35  In 1938 she wrote a letter to Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart Londonderry asking for his help in securing the release of her brother Max Wachstein, who was in the Dachau concentration camp.[7]

She attended Hietzing Gymnasium.[8]: 274  She later studied English and German at the University of Vienna receiving her PhD in 1932.[1][9] After completing her PhD, she taught for five years at Chajes Gymnasium in Vienna,[9] where she had also attended.[1] In 1939, Wachstein immigrated to London, England, where she taught both English and German to refugees and other immigrants.[9][3] She continued to do this for the duration of World War II.[3]

In 1944, she immigrated to New York City, where she made a living teaching German at Brooklyn College.[3] She was a visiting instructor at Vassar College May-June 1944.[9] Wachstein then entered a work-study program where she went on to earn her Ph.D. in social work at the Graduate School of Social Work at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, finishing in 1946.[3][10] Her dissertation title was Changing Attitudes in Relatives' Responsibilities (Observations made in the Welfare Office of a Japanese Relocation Center).[11] After earning her Ph.D. she became a supervisor in the Brooklyn school system. In 1965 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at Catholic University of Peru.[12][13] Following retirement, she continued to spread education through teaching English to Russian students at Bryn Mawr College.[3]

Published Works

Wachstein published several articles regarding the development, analysis, and treatment of childhood mental disorders.[1] Two of her works, published in the journal Child Welfare, are Child Guidance Without Involving Parents?[14] and News from the Field, Bedford Stuyvesant's PS83. A School for Healing.[15] She also published an article entitled, An Austrian Solution to the Problem of Child Placement.[16] These works were focused on offering tangible solutions to growing mental health concerns among adolescents in school after World War II.[1] In 2001 she published Too Deep Were Our Roots: A Viennese Jewish memoir of the years between the two world wars (foreward by James Monaco), a personal account of her memories living in Vienna between World War I and World War II.[17]

Legacy

Sonia Wachstein was known for her research in social work and psychotherapy.[1] She published research about equity problems in youth mental health based on her direct observation in the New York City Public School system.[18] As early as the 1960s, Sonia Wachstein observed the evident socioeconomic divide regarding access to privatized healthcare, especially therapy and other mental health services.[18] In spite of this, she advocated for direct psychiatric and psychological screening in public schools, clear pathways from a social worker to a therapist, and confidentiality for youth in therapy sessions without parents present.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Sonia Wachstein Collection". archives.cjh.org. Center for Jewish History. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  2. ^ a b Lappin, Eleonore (2007). "Fanny Von Arnstein and Her Biographer Hilda Spiel". In Gazsi, Judit; Pető, Andrea; Toronyi, Zsuzsanna (eds.). Gender, Memory, and Judaism (PDF). Budapest: Balassi Kiadó. pp. 89–104. ISBN 978-963-506-742-8.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Sonia Wachstein".
  4. ^ Hacken, Richard (2002). "The Jewish Community Library in Vienna: From Dispersion and Destruction to Partial Restoration". The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book. 47 (1). Oxford Academic: 151–172. doi:10.1093/leobaeck/47.1.151.
  5. ^ Silverman, Lisa (2012). "Vienna's Jewish Geography: The Leopoldstadt in Interwar Literature". Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199794843.
  6. ^ a b c Lappin, Eleonore (2009). "Jüdische Lebenserinnerungen. Rekonstruktionen von jüdischer Kindheit und Jugend im Wien der Zwischenkriegszeit". In Stern, Frank; Eichinger, Barbara (eds.). Wien und die Jüdische Erfahrung 1900-1938. Böhlau Verlag. pp. 17–38. ISBN 9783205783176.
  7. ^ Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart Londonderry (2022). "Appeasement and War". In Fleming, N.C. (ed.). Aristocracy, Democracy and Dictatorship: The Political Papers of the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry. Vol. 63. Cambridge University Press. p. 294.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Raggam-Blesch, Michaela (2009). ""Being different where being different was definitely not good" Identitätskonstruktionen jüdischer Frauen in Wien". In Stern, Frank; Eichinger, Barbara (eds.). Wien und die Jüdische Erfahrung 1900-1938. Böhlau Verlag. pp. 257–276. ISBN 9783205783176.
  9. ^ a b c d "New Faculty..." The Miscellany News. June 14, 1944. p. 2.
  10. ^ "Graduate and Undergraduate Degrees are Conferred". Vol. 32, no. 26. Bryn Mawr College News. p. 3.
  11. ^ "Students' Dissertations in Sociology". American Journal of Sociology. 52 (1): 51–59. 1946. (see p. 58)
  12. ^ "Sonia Wachstein". fulbrightscholars.org. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  13. ^ "U.S. Lecturers and Research Scholars: A Preliminary Listing | Educational and Cultural Exchange Program Fiscal Year 1965" (PDF). libraries.uark.edu. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. October 1965. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  14. ^ Wachstein, Sonia (1960). "Child Guidance Without Involving Parents?". Child Welfare. 39 (4): 19–25. JSTOR 45398316.
  15. ^ Wachstein, Sonia (1972). "Bedford Stuyvesant's P.S. 83: A School for Healing". Child Welfare. 51 (10): 650–657. JSTOR 45392833. PMID 4664286.
  16. ^ Wachstein, Sonia (1963). "An Austrian Solution to the Problem of Child Placement". Child Welfare. 42 (2): 82–85. JSTOR 45399778.
  17. ^ Wachstein, Sonia (2001). Too Deep Were Our Roots: A Viennese Jewish memoir of the years between the two world wars. Harbor Electronic Publishing. ISBN 9780970703927.
  18. ^ a b c Wachstein, Sonia (1961). "Therapy for Children without Parent Involvement". Social Work. 6 (4). Oxford Academic: 76–81. doi:10.1093/sw/6.4.76.
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