N. Lionel Blitzsten—1893–1952

When Lionel Blitzsten died on 27 September, 1952, there passed from the scene a man who, without the distinctions of academic rank, professional honours, or published works, had a profound influence on the practice of psycho-analysis in the United States. This influence had spread far beyond Chicago not only because of the brilliant therapeutic results that brought patients to him from every part of the country, but because the literally hundreds of practising psycho-analysts who had come to him for analysis and supervision had made him known in every training centre in the United States.

The reputation he had achieved was enhanced by the persistence of his basic tenets of practice and his continuing emphasis on the fundamental importance of working through the infantile neurosis in the transference-setting; he was labelled so 'orthodox' as to stand in the way of progress and innovation. Obversely, he was called 'unorthodox' because, with Sullivan, he was early to be concerned with the psycho-analytic treatment of the psychoses, and with the exploration of the relevant immediate dynamics of the relationship between patient and analyst.

As a result of the conflicting attitudes of many of his colleagues towards his uncompromising certainty as to what was to be considered sound doctrine and practice, Dr. Blitzsten was frequently thought of as a stormy petrel by those who did not know him. Locally, it became a paradoxical fact that though people of his persuasion were regularly labelled 'Blitzstenites', Dr. Blitzsten would not lend himself to such organized opposition as has led to the formation of dissident groups in some major training centres. He remained to the end more interested in therapeutics and in teaching than in any quest for organizational importance in his profession.

The origins of this fine, independent thinker were simple and unpretentious. His parents were Russian immigrants who brought a large family to Chicago when this son was still an infant. I