Ángel Garma (1904-1993)

The death of Ángel Garma on 29 January in his eighty-ninth year profoundly saddened the psychoanalytic community in Argentina and throughout the world. A man of great eminence, one of the pioneers of psychoanalysis, a master and a fighter, Ángel Garma was a firm believer in psychoanalysis and liberty. He brought psychoanalysis to Buenos Aires and subsequently played a major role in its dissemination throughout Latin America, by tenacious exertions over many years, in which, assisted by other, no less outstanding men, he displayed great lucidity, single-mindedness and unflagging effort.

He remained as active as ever until a few years ago when the symptoms of the Parkinson's disease which had been gradually undermining his body and nervous system worsened. His mind, however, remained clear until the end, and his spirit remained indomitable, overcoming moments of intense depression with the help and devotion of Elizabeth Goode Rasmussen, his wife and noble companion, and with the support of his children and the entire extended family, which included not only blood relations but also his friends and followers and ultimately a group of analysts scattered throughout the world.

Although dismayed by the progress of his illness, we could not but admire his lust for life and the courage he displayed in the face of his growing limitations, calmly and obstinately determined as he was not to yield to adversity and disability. He stood until his very last day, although not with deliberate intent, as an exemplar of his own theories, of the untiring struggle of the life instinct against the mute and fateful workings of the death instinct; symbolically, death came to him as evening fell on the last Friday in January, when the Buenos Aires psychoanalysts were just beginning their summer holidays. It was as if he had wanted to stay with us until the very end of our working year.

In his wheelchair, he attended the First Argentine Congress of Psychoanalysis, held in the General San Ma