Vann E. Spruiell (1926-2005)

Vann E. Spruiell, IJP's Editor for North America from 1988 to 1993, died on 18 August at the age of 78. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for several years. His death came just 10 days before Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the city he loved, and scattered the psychoanalytic community for which he had been an inspiring intellectual and organizational leader for half a century.

He was born in Leeds, Alabama, a small town in which his father was the pharmacist. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Alabama in 1948, and an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1952. Psychiatric residency was at New York Hospital, and psychoanalytic training at the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute from which he graduated in 1965. For the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was a member of most major committees of the Board on Professional Standards, and was its Secretary from 1979 to 1982. He was President of the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute from 1985 to 1989. Although he was always willing to accept positions of responsibility in psychoanalytic organizations, I don't think he felt truly at home in this aspect of professional work. Perhaps a primary need to be truthful rather than diplomatic hampered his effectiveness in navigating in the seas of the political maneuverings and arguments endemic to psychoanalytic organizations.

He was a superbNorth America editor for IJP, following the path and mentorship of his predecessor Edward M. Weinshel. He wrote masterly critiques of submitted papers which helped writers to build their work toward their highest possible level of creative achievement. He assembled a group of associate editors with whom he worked intimately and tirelessly. For me it was an inspiring privilege to belong to this team. The uninhibited exchanges of critiques and ideas that passed among us, which he encouraged and coordinated, stimulated all of us to think more clearly, constructively and imaginatively.

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