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Sam Guttman died on the 18th of September, 1995, after a long and distressing illness, leaving us an invaluable legacy for which we remain lastingly grateful.
It must have been in the late fifties that I met Sam at some committee or other of the American Psychoanalytic Association. It did not take me long to realize that I had come across a remarkable person marked by brilliance, humor, and unusual creativity—and not without a few quirks of character. Many were lovable, such as his exceptional generosity of spirit and his sparkling wit; others required sympathetic understanding which, once given, led to admiration and lasting friendship. Never dull, he was, on the contrary, a man of great interest and complexity, to a degree unusual even in our profession. Above all, he had a profound knowledge and love of psychoanalysis. We became close friends and remained so until his death.
Soon after we met some thirty-seven years ago he described what struck me as a fantastic plan to encourage the development of psychoanalysis and its practitioners. He thought there would be an important place for a new type of group activity, one that would function as a learning process for mature psychoanalysts. It would be a country-wide, essentially leaderless organization which would give its participants the opportunity to spend time with one another in a neutral atmosphere, free of the usual stress and political considerations that inevitably color one's thinking and discussion within one's own institute and at meetings of the American.
Groups of fifteen analysts would be invited to meet together for the weekend in the relaxed atmosphere of the Nassau Inn at