Dedication to Samuel D. Lipton, M.D.

For the Chicago psychoanalytic community, Sam Lipton always performed an important function. It was his job to cut through obfuscation, whether in the clinical, the educational, or the administrative realm and reveal fundamental issues in order to arrive at clarity and understanding. In the clinical area, this often took the form of highlighting the importance of the psychoanalytic clinical situation, deemphasizing abstract theory or conventional ways of thinking. For Sam, the writings of Freud were often the touchstone, and it was Freud the clinician—Freud who was best revealed in his work with the Rat Man—rather than Freud the metapsychologist or system-builder whom he treasured. Sam saw the essential script of psychoanalysis in Freud's notes to the Rat Man, and these notes served as a continuing source of inspiration for his solid clinical work. For others, this position of Sam's seemed reactionary, obstructing a view of psychoanalysis as a developing and progressive scientific enterprise. And, indeed, there was a quality of intransigence about Sam's defense of Freud's technical interventions in 1907, as if nothing of consequence has happened since. But Sam believed that if anyone was in a position to lay claim to fundamentals of method, surely it was Freud himself at the height of his powers.

It was not that Sam was impatient with innovation. Rather, he had a “show-me” attitude with regard to new developments. He was fundamentally a pragmatist, a practical man. If it worked, it was all right. The clinical crucible was the testing ground. If it was done merely to advance the elegant or the clever, it was never enough and thus suspect.

In the realm of psychoanalytic politics, Sam was impatient with cant, grandiose and flowery exposition, and specious rationalizations. He was an iconoclast, highly distrustful of public displays and ostentation. To a large extent, he was above and outside the fray. His essential nature was not that of a joiner, not that of a participa