Berta Bornstein—1899-1971

Born in Poland, the daughter of an engineer, Berta Bornstein received her education in Berlin where the family had moved shortly after her birth. There she taught in a school for disturbed children. She and her sister, Steff, entered training analysis in the early 1920's, Berta with Hans Lampl and later with Edward Bibring. Her stay in Berlin was twice interrupted by periods spent in Vienna, the second time to escape Nazi persecution. In Vienna she was already well established as an analyst by 1933, and there she worked with Anna Freud, whose ideas about child analytic techniques were congenial to her. In 1938, she came to New York where she taught child analysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, conducted analyses of children and adults, and supervised the child analytic work of many students. She also taught at the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. She was an Honorary Member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. She died on Vinalhaven in Penobscot Bay, the island she loved more than any other place. Her sister, Steff, also a distinguished child analyst, died in 1939. Her brother, Joseph, a well-known journalist in Germany, came to New York; another brother lived in San Francisco. Such are the few ascertainable facts of Berta Bornstein's life.

The dozen or so papers she published—her wastebaskets were full of beginnings that did not satisfy her—are among the most valuable in the whole literature of child analysis. They, and her teaching, are convincing evidence that Berta Bornstein stood pre-eminent among analysts in her understanding of children. Even more striking was her knowledge of how to convey this understanding to the child: she always knew what to say so that her ideas or intentions were exactly conveyed; she formulated her thoughts with such perfect clarity that even a child (as adults are likely to say) could understand. She seemed to