A (My) Remembrance of Alan Kindler

In the Enormous Room, E. E. Cummings described individuals whose particular presence and relatedness captivated him. He called them “delectable mountains.” Alan Kindler was (and is) one of my delectable mountains. We first met, I believe, at an initial self psychology meeting in Chicago around 1979 when Alan attended a workshop I chaired on transmuting internalization. Then, and ever again, I found Alan to be a colleague of great intelligence, sincerity, and a delightful companion. A winning combination. The spark of a rich friendship was ignited, now sadly only to be continued in my mind.

From his up-bringing, university, and medical training in Australia, Alan brought to Toronto and self psychology an ability to think clearly and express himself with a minimum of jargon. I am certain his analysis, especially his analyst having been Ernie Wolf a warm affectionate person situated at the heart of self psychology, plus Alan’s analytic training contributed, but I would guess Alan came to analysis with a natural sense of how others feel and think. His sense of the workings of an individual mind set in the context of a dyadic relationship contributed to Alan becoming and being an outstanding analyst and supervisor. Alan had the good fortune to be in Toronto when a group of lively minds—Peter Thomson, Howard Bacal, Sam Izenberg, Gary Rodin, Hazel Ipp—came together bringing enrichment from Winnicott, Balint and through Balint, Ferenczi. Alan was interested in theory and a valued presenter and discussant at meetings but I believe clinical issues, meaning the patient’s welfare, came first. Our coming together to write a paper published in JAPA in 1994 came about because Alan saw motivational system theory’s potential for understanding his clinical experience and making it intelligible to others.

Alan brought to his practice as a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist an excellent background of training. Growing up in Melbourne, he received his MBBS in 1964 at the university there. Aft