Dr Herman Nunberg: An Appreciation1

In any appreciation of Dr Herman Nunberg's contribution to psychoanalysis, mention must be made of his Austrian past as well as his American present. Nevertheless, not too much needs to be made of the change in geographical scene in his case. In contrast to many others among us who were uprooted, like him, in the middle of their professional career, neither his working habits, nor his pace, nor his attitude to life altered with the altered circumstances. He remained the same quiet, immersed, determined, highly critical and inexorably careful worker on either side of the Atlantic and, as such, commanded the respect of the analytic world and the gratitude of his patients.

In recalling my association with Dr Nunberg in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, I tend to think of myself as his former co-member, not his colleague. Although the importance of age difference (slight as it is between us) dwindles with advancing years, something of the initial difference in professional status remains, and for me, nothing does away with the fact that Dr Nunberg and I are not of the same analytic generation. We first met in the Vienna Group before the establishment of official Training Institutes and the gulf between training analysts and candidates which came with them. But, if anything, this increased and did not lessen the distance between old-timers and newcomers, the experienced and the inexperienced. To Dr Nunberg's age group belonged (in alphabetical order) Helene Deutsch, Paul Federn, Eduard Hitschmann, Ludwig Jekels; to mine the Bibrings, Hartmann, Kris, Wilhelm Reich, Waelder. While Nunberg presented and discussed problems, I, as a silent listener, used to ask myself enviously whether I would ever be as familiar with the subject as he proved himself to be; to teach and train instead of learning; to write papers as he did; to treat patients as difficult as his; to play a part in the psychoanalytic movement as he did and show myself capable of influencing its course.

Th