Obituaries

1930-1999

The following oration was delivered at the funeral of Jane Bunster in St Mark's Church, Regent's Park, London, on 25 June 1999.

The first reaction most people seemed to have when they learned of Jane's death was a feeling of shock. I imagine it was not just that she had been ill for so short a time. Our shock and disbelief were really on account of how, in her unassuming way, Jane featured so largely in so many of our lives and we were really not prepared to be without her.

For me, she was the undisputed mainstay of our Jungian Child Analytic Training where I knew her for over twenty years - first when she was a trainee and then, for many years, as a trustworthy collaborator, a close colleague and a friend.

Jane was a pragmatist and an idealist. She was devoted to the ideals of Jungian child psychoanalysis. No cheapening, cutting corners, no watering down of standards. For perhaps the last fifteen years she devoted endless hours to teaching our trainees, to her well-known Infant Observation groups, attending committees, working in support of allied organizations - and not for the glory of the prestige but because she believed so strongly in our training and she wanted it to succeed. Her devotion to the students and their development came across so much in her teaching, and the trainees admired and relied on her. Indeed, Jane Bunster really loved child analysis - at its best - and all that it stands for, in furthering the emotional health of babies and children of whatever age. She was full of ambition, not for herself but for those ideals. This seemed to spring from exceptional humanity, humility and generosity of spirit.

Jane's pragmatism helped her to accomplish her goals. She went out to far-flung clinics where trainees had posts, co-ordinating and seeing to it that everything was in working order. She consistently fought for her protégés - trainees and new fledgling psychoanalytic trainings, for example - to have any assistance they needed, from