Lore Reich Rubin, MD 1928–2024

Lore Reich Rubin MD, aged 95, an eminent psychoanalyst born and raised in the Viennese world of Sigmund Freud and the daughter of Wilhelm Reich, died on February 24 at her home in Seattle, USA. In failing health, and after discussions with her children, Dr. Rubin made use of the Washington State law allowing death with dignity and chose to end her own life consciously and courageously. Throughout her life and to the very end she possessed and wielded a powerful intellect and an uncommon capacity to interpret human behavior.

Lore Reich was born in Vienna, Austria on March 11, 1928 to Wilhelm and Annie Reich, a power couple in the small group of Viennese psychoanalysts who trained with Freud in the 1920s and early 1930s. An older sister, Eva, had been born in 1924. Lore’s parents divorced in 1933 and Annie and the two girls fled Europe, the Holocaust and imminent war, arriving in New York City in 1938. Seeking places to hike and walk as in Europe, Annie eventually discovered Northern New England and Mt. Desert Island, which became a frequent vacation destination for Eva and Lore.

Lore attended Oberlin College before transferring to New York University where she earned a BA in 1949. She completed a medical degree at New York University in 1954, a residency in psychiatry at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in 1958, and graduated from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1962. In the late 1940s she met Julius (Julie) Rubin, and they were married in 1947 when Lore was 18 years old. After Lore spent a brief period in private practice in Manhattan, the couple moved to Pittsburgh in 1964 when Julius took a position in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh.

From 1964 to 2000 Lore maintained an active private practice and served as a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and at the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute. Throughout her career Lore was active in the wider psychoanalytic community, writing, teaching, and servin