Martin William Peck—1880-1940

Martin William Peck died May 7, 1940. For many years he had been one of a small group that pioneered in the practice of psychoanalysis in Boston. He was instrumental in founding the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and for many years served as its president during a time when the Society was going through a period of stress concomitant with the establishment of standards for organized training in psychoanalysis. It was during this time that one learned to appreciate his steadiness and integrity, his quiet reserve and wisdom. From the inception of the Boston Society he was a member of its educational committee and an important factor in the shaping of its educational policies. His outstanding characteristic was his conscientiousness in relation to his patients and their welfare. He constantly sought after new knowledge, read widely in his field and, like the youngest tyro in psychoanalysis, regularly attended seminars and lectures.

Dr. Peck was born in Montpelier, Vermont, December 14, 1880. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1902 and from the Harvard Medical School in 1915. From May 1917 to March 1918 he served in the U. S. Army Medical Corps with the rank of first lieutenant. Then followed many years of further training in psychiatry in the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital and the Boston Psychopathic Hospital where he served as Chief of the Out-Patient Department from 1923 to 1927. He was an instructor in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School from 1923 to 1937 and a lecturer at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He served faithfully as an editor of this QUARTERLY from 1936.

He was deeply interested in helping people and constantly sought to utilize his extensive psychoanalytic knowledge in psychotherapy. This showed itself in his writings which to a great extent dealt with the problem of therapy. He published a popular book on psychoanalysis.

He will be missed as a colleague and as a friend.