The Essence of Hans Loewald

Hans Loewald, like Freud, is a beloved figure for many, and those of us who have been affected by his profound teaching seem each to have emerged with a different slant on what should be regarded as his most important contributions. My Loewald may not be others' Loewald. Perhaps that rich multidimensionality is itself the hallmark of a seminal thinker. Certainly the same could be said for the work of Freud himself or, say, Ferenczi, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, or Winnicott, whereas one would not say it of Mahler, Greenacre, Rapaport, or Paul Gray, fine contributors to our field though they have been. Loewald's work has successfully transcended the era of theoretical pluralism. I predict that because of the open, integrative nature of his thought, and its abidingly clinical aptness, he will only gain in stature in the years to come. Arnold Cooper (1991) has appreciated him, as has Joel Whitebook (2004), as (to use the latter's phrase) a “radical conservative.” Given his importance, many have wondered why there is no “Loewaldian” school.

He was a slightly built man, a quiet presence who often sat crunched up as he listened to case material, his hand on his forehead like Rodin's Le Penseur; a man given to receptive, reactive listening, with an economical but incisive flow of words, a capacity to be blunt and not waste time beating about the bush. He frightened some with his air of austerity, but he also had a naughty twinkle and a great readiness to see humor. I and many others, I think, felt very free in his presence in spite of—or perhaps, in my case, because of—his gentlemanly, old-world formality. He carried weight for me like my old professors from medical school in the UK, whom I first encountered at the impressionable age of seventeen. He conveyed an air of such interest in one's thinking that I felt that what I said to him was almost magically dignified into something far more fascinating than I had appreciated. For all his brilliance, he was a private person