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When researchers looked into Helene Deutsch's papers archived at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI), Sanford Gifford used to say, “There are many biographies of Helene Deutsch, but Felix Deutsch's is the one needed, and yet to be written.” Sanford Gifford did in fact write several drafts of a Felix Deutsch biography between 1970 and 1977 (available in the BPSI Archives). The most extensive is more than one hundred pages long. While Gifford never felt his work was finished and therefore did not attempt to publish it, his unpublished biographies and his interview tapes in the BPSI archives present us with a vivid personal and professional portrait of Felix Deutsch. The following biographical sketch of Felix Deutsch is an abbreviated summary of the various drafts of Gifford's Felix Deutsch's biographies.
Felix Deutsch was born in Vienna on August 9, 1884, the second son of a bank official and a mother who came from a family of business owners. Felix's father died suddenly at the age of twenty-eight when Felix was six years old. The cause of death seemed to have been a heart attack or stroke associated with the father's chronic illness. Felix and his two siblings were subsequently brought up and financially supported by a maternal uncle because Felix's mother suffered from scoliosis and was unable to take care of the three children. Felix, always an excellent and curious student, had considerable artistic talent. As an adolescent he was torn between studying music (he wanted to become a conductor) and medicine, but medicine won out for reasons of financial security. Felix had a close childhood friend, Paul Bernay, who came from a very cultured household filled with art and music. For Felix, Paul