Lothair Henry Rubinstein (1908-1971)

The sudden death in Vienna of Dr Lothair Rubinstein on 26 July 1971 deprived the British Psycho-Analytical Society of one of its most respected senior members. Other analysts have died at International Congresses, but probably never so suddenly and unexpectedly, for his coronary disease had never been suspected.

Lothair Rubinstein was born in Vienna on 5 November 1908, so that he was only 62 at the time of his death. His education and upbringing in Vienna not only made him a doctor of medicine; it also endowed him with a culture that was both wide and deep, and this undoubtedly gave an unusual richness to his analytic approach in later years. He graduated M.D. at Vienna University in 1933, and then proceeded to an M.D. in Florence in 1934. This enabled him to become registered with the General Medical Council in 1936. From 1933 to 1935 he was clinical assistant at the Vienna University Clinic for Neurology and Psychiatry, and then assistant physician in the Department of Neurology of the Vienna Poliklinik (a voluntary general hospital), a post he held until his enforced departure from Vienna in 1938. In this way he became well equipped in neurology and the organic aspects of psychiatry, and he wrote two neurological papers in 1936.

In 1938 Rubinstein came to England and worked for a time in the Psychological Medicine Departments of Bart's and Guy's. During the war he was employed as assistant medical officer in a number of mental hospitals and he also acted for a time as Director of the Derby Child Guidance Clinic. From March 1945 to April 1947 he held appointments as specialist psychiatrist at the Southport and Sheffield E.M.S. Neurosis Centres. Meantime, in 1941 he had acquired the D.P.M. From 1948 he was for 12 years Consultant Psychiatrist at the Cassel Hospital; and he was Consultant Psychiatrist at the Portman Clinic from 1947 until his death. During all this period he also carried on part-time private practice.

Rubinstein had begun psychoanalytic trai