Tribute for Donna Orange

I am both honored and deeply saddened to be joining with these colleagues in writing our tributes to Donna Orange. Donna was, like all of us, no more than a mortal human being, but the nature of her ending played itself out with a kind of shocking violence so immensely disproportionate to the way she chose to live her life. I find this difficult to comprehend. The more time I give to taking in this reality, and to reflecting upon its impact, the deeper the loss becomes. There are so many more rooms to explore in this mansion of a woman: her intellect, the depth and reach of her scholarship, her compassion, and the impact of her loving fierceness. I will attempt to comment here on a few aspects of my personal connection with Donna, but I don’t expect these to be the last words I’ll write about her, or her work. Her work deserves so much more attention, and frankly, demands it. I will conclude with a few words on my last actual in-person meeting with Donna in Chicago at the 2023 IAPSP Conference.

Donna Orange and I evolved a relationship which covered the span of about 30 years. It was not only about our shared clinical and philosophical interests and sensibilities, but about something closely held, and not always articulated with words. It was a kind of twinship which was something embodied, deeply understood, and lived. It had something to do with our families of origin, the social class from which we each emerged, the accompanying degrees of shame, and the determination to emerge from it. I think Donna may have sensed this shared similarity with me very early on after my sudden and unexpected retreat from a just newly formed post-conference philosophy-psychoanalysis study group in the mid-1990’s. Donna, upon hearing the news that I was dropping out of the group, reached out to me to ask if I would please consider returning to the group despite my reservations. My reasons for leaving were complex. I had just begun my analytic training, and was eag