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Ralph Greenson died on November 24, 1979, at the age of sixty-eight after a life of great personal and scientific fulfillment. A leading member of his generation of psychoanalysts, Romi Greenson, as most of us called him, was a man of many parts who was devoted to his family, his patients, and his students.
Greenson was fiercely committed to the advancement of psychoanalytic theory and practice. He considered himself a link between the pioneers of psychoanlysis in the United States and the post-World-War-II generation of psychoanalysts. He thoroughly enjoyed being on the scene with Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein, serving on the Board on Professional Standards of the American Psychoanalytic Association with Max Gitelson, and having conversations about psychoanalytic practice with Ernest Jones. His friendships with Max Schur and Anna Freud grew out of such encounters. Romi Greenson was a clinical scientist and a romantic in the classical sense. He loved life in all of its aspects from infancy to old age and in its musical, poetic, artistic, and athletic expressions. He had a steady, unwavering concern for those who were about to succeed, those who failed, and those who were in pain, underprivileged, and in need.
Born September 20, 1911, in the melting pot of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, a fraternal twin whose parents had come from Russia, Ralph Romeo Greenson grew up with his three siblings in the richly stimulating environment of a close family. He was born one half hour before his sister, Juliet. His mother, a pharmacist with a love for music and the arts, supported the family while his father studied to become a family physician. The son accompanied the father on home visits and, in a deeply positive identification with both father and mother,