Introduction

Honored guests, friends, and family of Theodor Reik:

We are gathered here today to honor our founder, our teacher and mentor, Dr. Theodor Reik. There were many requests for this memorial meeting because it fills the deep need within all of us. Dr. Reik touched our lives in so many ways, as will become clear as this meeting progresses. There is one way in which he touched my own life, the life of the profession, and that of many of you, which I, as your chairman and as President of NPAP, would like to highlight.

Other speakers will delve into more personal aspects, more scholarly details but I would like to point out that in founding the NPAP Institute—the first of its kind in the history of the psychoanalytic movement—Theodor Reik was following in that wonderful tradition of Sigmund Freud, the belief that psychoanalysis does not belong to any one profession. He joined with Hanns Sachs and Otto Rank, and other illustrious nonmedical analysts trained by Freud, who continued this fundamental principle. Dr. Reik fought this battle in court with the support of Freud and won, and when he came to this country, he fought the battle all over again. The very fundamental rule of psychoanalysis is that it gets its enrichment, its scientific wisdom, and artistic inspiration from many disciplines. To mention the names of Anna Freud, Oskar Pfister, August Aichhorn, Ernst Kris, Erik Erikson—these are only a few of the nonmedical psychoanalysts who have enriched the heritage of psychoanalysis.

Theodor Reik's name is memorialized in the Theodor Reik Consultation Center, part of NPAP, and also now in the Institute which bears his name and continues his fundamental principle. It was an important part of Reik's genius to make this contribution to the psychoanalytic movement, as embodied in the NPAP, its Institute and Consultation Center, and in the Psychoanalytic Review.

I am now pleased to turn to our speakers, who will discuss the contributions of Theodor Reik to the science and professio