Dr. Robert Waelder, who was internationally known as an eminent figure in the field of psychoanalysis, died suddenly at his home in Broomal, Pennsylvania, on September 28, 1967. He was 67 years old.
Born and educated in Vienna, Dr. Waelder received his doctorate in physics at the University of Vienna in 1922. At this time he was attracted by the work of Sigmund Freud and began the study of psychoanalysis with the Vienna group. He became a member of the faculty of the newly established Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute in 1925, and taught there until 1938. During the 1930's he was close to Professor Freud and was one of the small group that gathered at Freud's home in the last Vienna years. During this period he was also editor of Imago.
He emigrated to the United States in 1938 and settled in Boston, where he joined the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1941, he came to Philadelphia to join the faculty of Bryn Mawr College and in the same year he was elected a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
He became a training analyst, first at the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute, and, after 1950, at the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis. In 1963, he was appointed Professor of Psychoanalysis in the Department of Psychiatry at the Jefferson Medical College. He held these two teaching positions until his death.
Correction
The September issue of the Newsletter carried a story about the newly admitted Florida Psychoanalytic Society, and it has been brought to our attention that the roster of officers included in that story was out of date. The current officers of the Florida Society are as follows:
President:
John M. Caldwell, M.D.
Vice-President:
Jose N. Gurri, M.D.
Secretary-Treasurer:
Ivan C. Berlien, M.D.
We are sorry for the error.
During a career of over 40 years as a teacher, Dr. Waelder was also a prolific writer, publishing a large number of articles and five books. His areas of interest included psychoanalytic theory, problems of scientific method, and the application of psychoanalytic knowledge to social, historical and political problems. Perhaps his most frequently quoted paper in the field of analytic theory was “The Principle of Multiple Function: Observations on Over-Determination”. The titles of his five books typically illustrate the range of his interests: The Psychological Aspects of War and Peace, in 1939; The Living Thoughts of Sigmund Freud (as editor), in 1941; Basic Theory of Psychoanalysis, in 1960; Psychoanalytic Avenues to Art, in 1965; and Progress and Revolution: A Study of the Issues of Our Age, which appeared not long before his death.
Commenting on Dr. Waelder's death, Dr. Charles Brenner, President of the Association, said: “Dr. Waelder has been an outstanding figure in the American Psychoanalytic Association during the past 25 years. He will be greatly missed as a teacher, as a lecturer, and as a contributor to scientific progress in psychoanalysis. In every one of these fields his abilities and talents placed him in the first rank of his colleagues.”