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LAWRENCE WILLARD KAUFMAN—Larry to all who knew him—a member of the William Alanson White Society, died on December 28, 1968, at the too young age of fifty-two. Fortunately, he was spared the rigors of a long illness. Following the wishes of his mother, Mrs. Mildred Kaufman, he was buried in a simple Jewish ceremony during which Harry Bone, his former training analyst, gave a most moving eulogy.
Larry's background was an unusual one for a psychoanalyst. Following his graduation from Rutgers in 1936 with a B.A. in history, he studied law at Harvard, receiving an LL.B. in 1939. But he was restless in the practice of law; it was too impersonal. In 1947 he took the courageous step of giving up law practice and entering Teachers College, Columbia, to study clinical psychology. From there he received an M.A. in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1955. As a graduate student, he decided that what he really wanted was psychoanalysis, and for this he turned to the White Institute. He began taking courses there in 1947, was admitted as a candidate in 1956, and was graduated in February 1963.
For the last ten years, he practiced psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with children, adolescents, and adults, and also analytic group therapy. He related easily to children and enjoyed working with them.
But treatment alone was insufficient for his questing mind and he relieved the loneliness of individual therapy by teaching and supervising at Teachers College, New York University, and Adelphi University. He made a sufficiently distinguished contribution to the Adelphi Post-Doctoral Program to be offered a full-time position with the rank of professor. At the time of his death, in addition to his private practice, he was an adjunct professor and a supervisor at Adelphi, and also supervised and conducted therapy groups in the guidance program at Brooklyn College.