You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In the early hours of July 12th, 1989, Benjamin Rubinstein died peacefully in his sleep at New York Hospital. He was, in my measured opinion, the finest psychoanalytic theorist of his time. At eighty-four, he finally succumbed in his struggle against cancer.
Beni, as his family and many friends called him, was born March 12th, 1905, in Helsinki, a member of the small, much intermarried community of Finnish Jews. He and his three sisters grew up in a warm, extended family, and his ties to Finland remained strong until the end of his life. His education took place there, culminating in his receiving the Licentiate of Medicine from the University of Helsinki Medical School in December 1936. During his years at the university, he had an opportunity to be a research assistant to the great neurophysiologist Granit, an experience that left him with a lasting taste for scientific research.
After his graduation, he went to England where, from 1937 to 1939, he had postgraduate training in neurology and psychiatry at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases (Queens Square) and at the Maudsley Hospital, both in London. When World War II broke out, he returned at once to Finland, where he served from 1940 to 1944 in the Finnish army with the rank of captain, and had the occasion to practice some psychiatry. In 1940, another major event of his life took place: his marriage to Dinorah Rosenthal, always known as Dinah (or Dena). From 1945 to 1947, he was a resident in psychiatry at the University