Sidney Tarachow—1908–19651

After lingering for one month between life and death following a heart attack, Sidney Tarachow died on 6th December 1965 at the age of 57. Those who were close to him experienced each day the fluctuations of mood which accompanied every sign of improvement or worsening, until quite suddenly and quietly, just as the Fall meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association were drawing to a close, he breathed his last.

It is difficult for one who was close to Sidney Tarachow to appraise objectively his position in the field of psycho-analysis apart from him as a human being. His versatility, variety of interests, and indefatigable curiosity led him into activities of such dimensions that one cannot hope to do justice in so brief a statement to the many-sidedness of his personality.

Born in Russia, and brought to America as a child where he spent his developmental years in Milwaukee, he received first his medical degree from Marquette University, and subsequently a Doctorate of Medical Science from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. He trained in Neurology, and then worked in his earlier years with problems in delinquency. While associated in a visiting capacity at the Mount Sinai and Beth Israel Hospitals, he undertook his psycho-analytic training at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

This was a period of Sturm und Drang in psycho-analytic circles, which finally exploded into the formation of dissenting groups, which broke away from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Sidney, with many of his friends, joined one of these splinter groups. However, he slowly came to realize that for him this had been an error. It is certainly a measure of his stature as a man that he had no hesitation in returning to the New York Psychoanalytic Institute as a candidate, despite the fact that he had already reached faculty status at another institution. When he returned we had many discussions about his search to find himself analytically. It was