Obituary: Anton Kris

Tony Kris, scholar, clinician, mentor and friend, died on 11 March 2021. When you would see Tony and in greeting him ask, “How are you?”, his standard reply was, “Could be worse, probably will be.” Although this was his jocular response, he had good reason for his caution. His father, Ernst Kris, the renowned ego psychologist–psychoanalyst, had had his first cardiac event at the age of 40 while monitoring German army radio dispatches in Great Britain in 1940. He had heard that the Germans had broken through the Maginot Line and understood the increased danger to the Allies. His father survived, but he died of a heart attack at the age of 57. Tony was convinced his fate would be the same. At the age of 40, while my husband and I were visiting Tony and his family at their summer home in Martha’s Vineyard, he had a small but alarming heart attack. He was treated successfully. At the age of 50, he had a triple bypass. Over the next two decades, he was to experience a variety of heart problems and during the last decade of his life underwent numerous cardiac procedures.

Unfortunately, during the last year and half of his life, he was subject to a variety of heart-related health difficulties, including kidney failure, which he originally assumed was a primary disorder. His sister, Anna Kris Wolff, had been on dialysis for over a year before her death. Tony had devotedly tended to her care. He was clear he did not want to live like that, or die like that. He planned for his retirement at the end of June 2021. Then the doctors and he began to consider that this kidney problem was likely related to his heart condition. An aortic valve replacement could likely fix this problem. So Tony became optimistic that his kidney difficulty would be reversed and he told patients and supervisees and all of us that he would likely not have to retire after all. On the day before the procedure, Tony was optimistic about his future. He had survived so many heart operations before. “Talk to yo