Earl Witenberg, M.D. 1917-2002

Earl G. Witenberg, M.D., served as director of the William Alanson White Institute for thirty years, from 1963 to 1992. Dr. Witenberg's lengthy service, while extraordinary, was just one measure of his indefatigable and all-encompassing dedication to the White Institute. A larger-than-life personality, Earl's characteristic New England spareness, straightforwardness, stubbornness, and skepticism were well known and respected by his colleagues and his students. He was a compelling personality. Few people who came in contact with him left his presence without a story to tell.

Earl's scholarship was profound and his curiosity boundless. During his early tenure at the White Institute, his research vision encompassed a wide range of areas. He initiated a Visiting Distinguished Lecturer series and he spearheaded innovative conferences to which he invited scholars from many schools of thought. He intended their visits to enrich the Institute's intellectual foundation, and they did. Earl insisted on challenging conventional thinking and eschewing dogmatism, thereby contributing to the education and training of creative thinkers who could embrace ambiguity. Through his example, his scholarship, and his insistence on maintaining our uncertainty in the face of so many temptations to decide psychoanalytic questions once and for all, he made what may have been the crucial contribution to the essential and lasting identity of the White Institute.

Earl's pragmatism was nowhere more evident than in his leadership. He brought the White Institute from financial uncertainty to economic solvency, and it was his leadership and perspicacity that were responsible for the Institute's purchase of the landmark building it still occupies today. He felt that a psychoanalytic institute could not sustain itself unless it was constantly responsive to change. He was decisive: tough, persuasive, courageous, canny, and occasionally irascible.