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I am privileged to have been invited to participate in this ceremony honoring Ralph Manning Crowley by awarding him the William V. Silverberg Award for distinguished service to psychoanalysis. I had come to respect and admire William Silverberg during my work with him in this Academy. I had appreciated his fine contributions to psychoanalytic understanding before that.
I will only mention in passing the warm and affectional ties that developed between us, because Ralph has told me that he is devoting his remarks to the contributions of William Silverberg.
Shortly before this meeting I was also privileged to be a guest at a party honoring Ralph on his 75th birthday. I shared in the warmth and affection toward Ralph that has been experienced by his many colleagues and friends. I have had the opportunity to work with Ralph in his many capacities. He was first my teacher, then my supervisor, later the clinic director at the White Institute, where I worked as assistant director, subsequently my friend, advisor, mentor, and sometimes editor (a role that was subsequently reversed). I know something of the man that The Academy is honoring today and I will tell you more about him.
Murray Krim wrote in 1976, for the Newsletter of the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Institute, that “Ralph Crowley was, and is, part of the history of the psychoanalytic movement in the United States. He shared its youth, he was involved in its newness and excitement; he was passionate about the ideas of the great and near great who were teachers, colleagues, friends.”
Ralph was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1905. He was graduated from Wisconsin with high honors and Phi Beta Kappa, and completed an M.A. in psychology in 1928 under Norman Cameron. He enrolled in the Northwestern University Medical School in order to prepare for the study of psychiatry. There he met Lionel Blitzte