Lars Sjögren 1934 - 2007

The Swedish psychoanalyst Lars Sjogren, PhD., passed away 12 April 2007. His closest relatives are his daughter Lina, her mother, the Swedish novelist Agneta Pleijel, his grandchildren Elias and Sonja, and his elder sister Kjer-stin. His life companion Inger Gustafsson and many colleagues, co-workers and friends grieve the loss of Lars. Lars Sjogren was born in Stockholm but grew up in different parts of Sweden, as his father was a government-employed forester working in different regions of Sweden. Lars spent his student years in the university town of Lund, southern Sweden, where his great appetite for various humanistic subjects captured his interest, before he settled for psychology and wrote a thesis on dream psychology and physiology under the supervision of the legendary Lajos Szekely of the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society.

During his formative years, Lars traveled a lot, by sea and land. His multiple cultural interests lay the ground for his extensive learning and was later to prove a good background for a psychoanalyst at work. Lars Sjogren was an avid reader, the walls of his home were covered with books. His interest in the human soul was firmly anchored in cultural history and literature, and he wrote constantly. But his self-criticism was hard, and he did not publish enough to make a living as a journalist or foreign correspondent, which was once his dream. However, Lars later created an internal bulletin in the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society as a forum for open debate. The bulletin continues to be published, even though Lars left it soon after its beginning in order to give himself time to teach at the institutes of the two Swedish psychoanalytic societies.

He made great efforts to introduce Melanie Klein's thoughts to the Swedish audience and in 1988, together with the late Swedish analyst Ludvig Igra, he published an introduction to and translation of one of Klein's most important works, Love, guilt and reparation. Lars Sjogren's profound interest i