You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Dr. Ian Graham, psychiatrist, training and supervising analyst, and former director of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute passed away in his sleep on August 29, 2022 in his 88th year. He was preceded in death by four brothers, his wife, Suzanne, and is survived by his sister, two sons and daughter, five grandchildren, and two great-grandsons.
Ian was born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the fifth of six children. Following in the footsteps of his physician-father, Ian graduated as a doctor from the University of Western Ontario in 1958, trained in psychiatry at the University of Rochester and did a post-residency fellowship at the Menninger School of Psychiatry completing psychoanalytic training at the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis. In 1970 Ian and his family returned to Toronto where he set up a busy psychiatric and psychoanalytic practice for fifty years.
Ian was a well-regarded teacher in the Department of Psychiatry at The Wellesley Hospital, Toronto. On Fridays Ian chaired a popular psychodynamic diagnostic seminar where challenging clinical cases were presented and discussed from multiple points of view. This seminar was highly informative, enjoyable, filled with Ian's lively remarks and was considered the high point of the week. I recall when struggling neophyte therapists like myself revealed anxious concerns and unsettled counter-transferences about our clinical work. Ian carefully listened to our cases, stimulated an open discussion, then offered his sage comments supplemented by a relevant psychoanalytic reading. Ian also led a psychodynamic supervisors' group at The Wellesley—an essential experience for those of us who wanted to develop clinical sensitivity as supervisors. Ian's style in clinical work
and supervision was guided by his exposure to the multiple approaches of psychoanalysis, which he succinctly described as the “three streams of psychoanalytic theory” (Graham, 2000).
In addition to his family life, broad interests in readin