Otto Isakower 1899-1972

Otto Isakower was born, raised, educated, and trained in Vienna. He graduated from the University of Vienna Medical School in 1923. He specialized in Psychiatry thereafter in the Psychiatry Department of the same University while undergoing psychoanalytic training at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. He became a member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1925. After his appointment as training analyst, he served with Dr. Eduard Hitschmann as co-director of the clinic of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. The arrival of the Germans put an end to his career in Vienna. Escaping Nazi persecution, he moved first to England and then, in 1940, to New York City. He became a full member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society in 1943, and a member of the faculty shortly thereafter. He was a major contributor to the educational excellence of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute which he served as Chairman, variously, of the Library, Curriculum, and Educational Committees. As Chairman of the Curriculum Committee, he devised a psychoanalytic curriculum which serves as an international model to this day. In this capacity, in an effort to improve the technique of supervision, he evolved his concept of the “analyzing instrument.” As a contributor to the literature he was parsimonious yet here, too, his efforts had lasting impact. His bibliography is listed below. Psychoanalytic readers will recognize his 1938 paper as establishing the “Isakower Phenomenon.” As a teacher, his course on the technique of dream interpretation was legendary, both because of its didactic excellence and because of his stern personality—which, to his friends, concealed his shy warmth and wit. He was punctilious in his academic obligations, so that his sudden cancellation of his course in February 1972 was received with the gravest concern. And, indeed, he did not long survive his course. He died on May 10, 1972, leaving his wife of many years, Dr. Salomea Isakower, also a training analyst at the