Obituary: Arnold Z. Pfeffer

ARNOLD Z. PFEFFER died on January 27, 2002, at his home in Manhattan, at the age of 86. He was the first Honorary President of the International NeuroPsychoanalysis Society, and he played a seminal role in the founding of our fledgling inter-discipline.

At the age of 74, when most physicians are contemplating retirement, if they have not already retired, Arnold Pfeffer founded a revolutionary PsychoanalysisNeuroscience Study Group at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. This study group, which initially consisted of a small (invited) group of senior analytic colleagues, who attended a three-year series of monthly lectures on basic neuroscience (convened initially by Pfeffer's friend James Schwartz), expanded rapidly. By 1998 it had become a multi-faceted centre, which included not only the flagship monthly lecture series, presented by leading neuroscientists working on topics of interdisciplinary interest (by then the lectures were open to all), but also a number of satellite research and study groups, as well as a seminar course in the New York Psychoanalytic Institute's standard training curriculum. When the American Psychoanalytic Association made its regular site visit to the Institute two years later, it described the centre—by then named the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuro-Psychoanalysis—as the “jewel in the crown” of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Considering the illustrious history of the NY Institute, this was no small achievement in such a short period of time.

Arnold Pfeffer was also instrumental in the establishment of this journal and of the International Neuro-Psychoanalysis Society, as well as a NeuroPsychoanalysis Foundation, which was established in 1999 to fund the Center's activities. Arnold personally contributed extremely generously to this fund (as his widow and colleague, Marjorie Pfeffer, continues to do). It is no exaggeration to say that the very existence of the field of neuropsychoanalysis owes more to Arnold Pfeffer than to any o