From the Societies: Obituary

Eva Metman, who died on 1st December 1959 aged 64, is the second founder member of the London Society of Analytical Psychology who has been lost to us.

Many will not know that as a young woman she was a promising actress and that she played leading roles such as the Rautendelein in Hauptman's Die Versunkene Glocke, nor that she was trained and produced by Max Reinhardt, who thought highly of her talent. They may be even more surprised to know that she founded two theatres: Die Tribüne in Berlin, which is still in existence, and a second one in Munich.

Yet if they had listened to the way she delivered her paper “Reflections on Samuel Beckett's Plays” to the Analytical Psychology Club in 1958, they must have realized her grasp of theatrical technique and her knowledge of its meaning. The content of her essay as well as the vivid and powerful presentation to a large audience both gave a hint of what had been in her earlier life.

It was not until she came over to Great Britain in 1936 that she considered becoming an analyst. This arose from her association with Philip Metman and from the high estimation in which she was held by Dr. H. G. Baynes, whose belief in her abilities was the starting-point in her new career.

Her main contribution was undoubtedly in her actual analytic work and in her personal life, where her charm, loyalty, and originality of mind drew round her a circle of friends who knew how to value her qualities. It is perhaps this personal gift, as well as her thorough grasp of analytical psychology, that made her seminars to students so much appreciated. They got from her not only a teacher's knowledge, but also outspoken and friendly appreciation or criticism of their general attitudes.

Apart from her posthumous paper in this Journal she wrote three others, all published by the Guild of Pastoral Psychology. Her interest in the Guild arose from her longstanding concern in the first place with theosophy and occultism and later with the psychology of religion as