Born and educated in Vienna, he studied with Freud and in 1937 became senior lecturer in psychiatry and neurology at the University of Vienna. The following year he fled as a refugee to England where he became reader in psychiatry in the university of London. In 1956 he was appointed to the newly created chair of psychiatry at the university of Sheffield. Stengel served as president of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association and also of the International Association for Suicide Prevention. He was a world authority on the subject of suicide and suicide prevention.