In Memoriam

The death of Dr. John Rickman at the age of sixty while resting on a bench in a favorite garden removes a figure who had actively participated for thirty years in the development of psychoanalysis in Great Britain. His contributions included teaching and administration at the London Psycho-Analytic Institute, Editorship of the British Journal of Medical Psychology and the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, participation in the affairs of medical societies and movements intended to advance tolerance and understanding between differing groups. Indeed, Rickman, who was undergoing analysis with Freud in 1921-1922, formed a new and personal tie between British and American psychoanalysis through his friendly and helpful contacts with the half dozen Americans undergoing training in Vienna at that time, among them myself.

Friendliness and persuasiveness were outstanding characteristics of Rickman, who was born into a Quaker family and remained a member of the Society of Friends until shortly before his death. When he graduated in medicine in 1916 in the midst of World War I, his pacifist principles led him to serve with the Friends War Victims Relief Unit in Russia instead of duty with the British Army. He drew heavily upon this early experience in his recent book of sketches People of Great Russia, written in collaboration with Geoffrey Gorer and by many considered Rickman's best literary production.

Upon his return from Russia, Rickman was elected an Associate Member of the British Psycho-Analytic Society and, after his study with Freud, a full Member in October, 1922. From that time onward there were few interests, educational or literary, of psychoanalytic endeavors in London to which Rickman did not lend a skilled and helping hand. At the outset of the Second World War, he was already interested in extending knowledge gained in the psychoanalysis of individual problems to that of groups. The later aspect of his thinking proved of great value, when in the S