Clara Lazar-Geroe (1900–1980)

Dr Clara Lazar-Geroe, in her eightieth year, the first training analyst in Australia, died in the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Tuesday, 12 February 1980 and was cremated at Springvale Crematorium on 14 February.

Clara Geroe, as she was known to most of us, came to Melbourne from Hungary with her husband and family on 14 March 1940, having been trained in medicine and psychoanalysis, in Budapest, in the school of Ferenczi. Her training analyst was Dr Michael Balint.

It was at the International psycho-Analytical Congress in Paris in 1938 that Dr Geroe first discussed with the late Dr Ernest Jones the possibility of six Hungarian analysts emigrating to New Zealand. This did not eventuate; but about that time there were many prominent people, among them Bishop Burgman and Doctors Paul G. Dane, M. D. Silberberg, Reg. S. Ellery and R. C. Winn, all now deceased, who were strongly in favour of analysts coming to Australia. As a result of much negotiation, with the encouragement of these persons and the enthusiasm and enterprise of Dr Paul Dane particularly, Dr Geroe settled in Melbourne with her family, to become Australia's first training analyst with the newly formed Melbourne Institute for Psychoanalysis. She was appointed as such by the British Psycho-Analytical Society of which she was a member.

The founding of the first Institute was made possible by the generous benefaction of Miss Lorna Traill. The first meeting actually to form it was held in the home of the late Dr Hal Maudsley who played such a big part in the development of psychiatry in Australia. It was finally opened at 111 Collins Street, Melbourne, with great celebration, by the late Judge Foster on the birthday of its benefactor, Miss Lorna Traill, on 10 October 1940. The first Board of Directors, non-analysts but very favourably disposed psychiatrists, included the late Doctors Paul G. Dane, Norman Albiston, Reg. S. Ellery, P. Guy Reynolds and A. R. Phillips; Ernest Jones, psychoanalyst of London, also