The Contributions of Tony Kris

It is on my mind today and since Tony's death that in many ways the central organizing theme of his work was mourning. How to help others mourn who they have lost; how to mourn who we wish we could have been and, when things go well, how to live creatively with who we are. Tony found so many ways to live creatively even in the face of sometimes staggering loss. So today, we mourn a man so interested in mourning and so capable of offering us creative ways to live life.

I met Tony when I was in training to become a psychoanalyst, and he supervised me during training. I met him at a vulnerable time in my late twenties when my father had just died precipitously at a very young age. We realized early on in meeting that we had both lost our much-admired fathers far too early, each at age 56. And we both commiserated with humor that we felt our academic fathers were far smarter than we were. It was a deep connection. I met Tony before I became a father, and it was a great pleasure for me to hear of his love for David and Michael and of course Kitty. I learned so much from him in supervision, and afterward we began a long friendship of lunches, dinner, Red Sox games, concerts, collaboration on a few writing projects, and teaching together. Over the years, we always read and critiqued each other's work. We co-taught a seminar together for many years, which was enormous fun. His willingness and capacity to learn from his students and enjoy his students' learning was a wonderful complement to the vast clinical wisdom he gave us.

I admired so many things about Tony. When Tony took someone on for therapy or analysis or for supervision, he was all in. He was devoted and stubborn in his dedication to their growth. He had a unique capacity to support and confront. He never shied away from what needed to be said and he often made the unsayable able to be spoken. In this way, he was never patronizing. He dignified us all with the belief that we could