Rudolf Ekstein 1912-2005

Rudolf Ekstein, MSS, Ph.D., 93, Senior Consulting Editor and a founding member of our editorial board, passed away on March 18, 2005, while vacationing in his native Vienna. Originally a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Vienna, Rudi soon developed an equally passionate interest in psychoanalysis, complementing his university education by studying psychoanalytic pedagogy with Willi Hoffer, August Aichhorn, and Anna Freud. However, his psychoanalytic education ended abruptly in the late 1930s, when he left for America rather than accommodate to rapidly deteriorating conditions as the Nazis gained in influence and power. Rudi arrived in New York shortly before the beginning of the Second World War. Like so many other talented European analysts without medical training, he was barred from membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association, and unwelcome as an affiliate of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. In order to practice, he undertook graduate social work training in Boston, and later, moved to Topeka, where in 1947 he began a mutually rewarding decade-long affiliation with the Menninger Institute and Clinic. Still later, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he became intimately associated with the pioneering clinical treatment and research being performed at the Reiss-Davis Clinic. Though his journey was a long and arduous one, Rudi gradually attained a position of leadership within the American psychoanalytic community that by any standard - and lay analysts have always been held to a higher one - was a remarkable achievement. His skills as an analyst, supervisor, and teacher were legendary, and he was especially well-known for his groundbreaking work with psychotic and borderline children and adolescents. However, it is perhaps Rudy's publications that shall prove to be his most enduring legacy. A prolific and talented writer, he was the author of literally hundreds of theoretical and clinical papers, as well as a number of books, among