Robert Waelder—1900-1967

In Robert Waelder we have lost one of the outstanding teachers in the field of psychoanalysis.

Although he had had no formal training in medicine and psychiatry—his specialty had been physical chemistry—his first presentation to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1924, The Psychoses: Their Mechanisms and Accessibility to Influence, gave evidence of his mastery of psychoanalytic concepts and the brilliance of his argumentation. It was natural, with his vivid grasp of the then prevailing currents in our science, that he should have been regarded by the group of young psychoanalysts in Vienna as a guide through the complexities of psychoanalytic theory, then evolving and changing. His contributions to the Society and his discussions were distinguished by the lucidity of his methodical reasoning. He frequently uncovered and brought into focus, sometimes in a surprising way, aspects of theory that had hitherto been latent. When taking part in a symposium he often gave an unexpected turn to the proceedings by introducing some highly constructive point of view, one that became the pivot of the discussion.

Dr. Waelder was an accomplished and fascinating speaker. These qualities made him an ideal teacher and he devoted a great deal of his time and energy to teaching students, at psychoanalytic institutes and as professor of psychoanalysis at a medical college.

His scientific writings cover a wide range of subjects. Whether he was elaborating on psychoanalytic concepts or retracing their history and development, his presentation was always methodical and precise. We see him best at work in his characteristic way in The Principle of Multiple Function: Observations on Over-Determination, and in Basic Theory of Psychoanalysis. His 1936 paper, The Problem of the Genesis of Psychical Conflict in Earliest Infancy, is a brilliant attempt at clarifying some issues then paramount in psychoanalysis. Much of his writing was devoted to the application of psychoanalysis to probl