The Unique Benjamin Wolstein as Experienced and Read*

Benjamin Wolstein was one of the most prolific writers of his generation of psychoanalysts, and certainly the most prolific interpersonal psychoanalyst. He wrote seven books and about 100 articles and chapters in books. He was a regular speaker at New York University, William Alanson White Institute, Adelphi, Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, but he rarely spoke at other psychoanalytic institutes. There were several early forays into mixed psychoanalytic audiences, but over the years they were fewer and fewer,1 while some of his colleagues (Levenson in his generation, and Blechner, Ehrenberg, Greenberg, and Mitchell, to name but a few, in the next) continued to broaden their audience. Wolstein trained several generations of analysts as their analyst, supervisor, or teacher. The names of his students who claim him as a major influence reads like a Who's Who of interpersonal and relational psychology: Lewis Aron, Roanne Barnett, Tony Bass, Mark Blechner, Barbara Dusansky, Darlene Ehrenberg, Dan Epstein, John Fiscalini, Roberta Held-Weiss, Irwin Hirsch, Irena Klenbort, Phyllis Meshover, Ian Miller, Richard Rubens, Sue Shapiro, Clark Sugg, Warren Wilner, to name several. But outside this immediate circle of New York-based, interpersonally trained analysts, Wolstein's name and work are relatively unknown. Even within his own institutional home base, the William Alanson White Institute, his work is often not included in edited works (Epstein & Feiner, 1979) or cited in relevant articles and books. I hope that this article serves as an introduction to