Helen Block Lewis (1913-1987)

After a brief illness, Helen Block Lewis died in Cambridge, MA, January 18, 1987. That day, Division 39 lost one of its pioneers, a woman who had served as president during 1984-1985; Psychoanalytic Psychology lost not only its founder and guiding spirit but the brilliant editor of all 12 issues published through 1986; psychoanalysis mourned the loss of an outstanding practitioner, a supervisor, a researcher; psychology was deprived of a superior teacher, a scholar; and many of us lost a valued friend whose warmth, humanism, and depth of caring are irreplaceable.

Born August 22, 1913, on Henry Street in Manhattan, Helen grew up in New York City. She had a very close relationship with her father, a physician on the lower East Side. Her father was an old-fashioned neighborhood doctor who knew the detailed histories of the families he tended, and Helen picked up his sense of dedication and concern for the sick and needy as she accompanied him often on his house calls.

Those who knew Helen well were aware of the self-discipline and of the great demands she placed on herself — she was constantly refining her knowledge, never satisfied that she knew enough. An incident from her childhood is paradigmatic, in a sense, of what was to follow. The night before Helen was to go to school for the first time—she must have been close to 6—her father heard her sobbing. He went upstairs to see why she was crying and gently asked what on earth was the matter. “Daddy,” she said, “I'm supposed to start school tomorrow, but how can I go? I don't know anything.”

In 1932, at the age of 19, Helen received a B.A. from Barnard; in 1936, she received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia. She was a Phi Beta Kappan and was rewarded with a fellowship for her outstanding scholastic achievements.

She began an illustrious teaching career at Brooklyn College in 1934-2 years before the completion of her doctorate—and remained there until 1942. She next taught courses in social and clinical psyc