Dr. David Brunswick died in Los Angeles on April 26, 1981 at the age of 84, following a decline of several years from arterial degeneration. His personality shone through to the end, an openness to what was going on within and around him and a matter-of-fact, even witty, acceptance of how things were.
Dr. Brunswick was a pioneer in establishing psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. Arriving there in 1932 from analysis in Vienna, he augmented a small group who had preceded him and strengthened their activity as a psychoanalytic study group. In 1934, Dr. Brunswick thought of inviting Dr. Ernst Simmel, whom he had met at Simmel's Tegel Sanitarium in Berlin, to come as a teacher and organizer and was surprised when he accepted. Dr. Simmel shortly thereafter invited Mrs. Frances Deri, who invited Dr. Otto Fenichel (both from Prague), who attracted others, leading to the chain which culminated in the founding of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in 1946. Commenting on the catalytic roles played by himself in Los Angeles, his friend John Benjamin in Denver, and Dr. Siegfried Bernfield in San Francisco, in setting down psychoanalytic roots on the West Coast, David once said, “The common factor may have been that we were all three men of good will, with a minimum of hostility.” David's character was such that his self-assessment could be accepted.
Born in New York City in 1896, Dr. Brunswick was educated at Exeter, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins, where he earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1923. As a sophomore at Harvard, he read Freud and was intellectually struck, in spite of the criticisms of his teacher. That year he wrote a thesis on “The Interpretation of Dreams.” His doctoral thesis was on “The Effects of Emotional Stimuli on Gastro-intestinal Tone” and became a definitive paper on the subject. However, David then followed his heart to become what Lorente de No called the “lost Brunswick”, lost to the neurosciences. In 1927, he took off for Vienna to be analyzed by Freud. One of the few surviving members of that generation of Americans in Vienna, David was not the only one of his family to cross into psychoanalysis in those early days. Dr. Leonard Blumgart, a maternal relative, was already an analyst in New York City. David's younger brother, Mark, married Ruth Mack, who preceded David to Vienna and Freud.
During the analytic years in Los Angeles, David was a sought-after analyst for training, supervision, and teaching. However, he never lost sight of his earlier interests. Thoroughly committed to the usefulness of psychoanalytic theory, he remained actively interested in integrating it with its neurophysiological substrate. For many years he regularly attended the laboratory of his close friends, Arnold and Mila Schiebel at UCLA, looking into the neurophysiology of unconscious processes. In 1954, in a paper published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, he offered a major revision of the classification of instincts and the relationship between drives, anxiety, and defense more in keeping, he felt, with neurophysiological principles. He listened to criticisms of his thesis with complete receptivity, although I do not believe he changed his mind about the correctness of his proposed revisions. He was also the translator of Otto Fenichel's monograph on “Problems of Psychoanalytic Technique” and of a number of Fenichel's major papers.
An inseparable part of David was Dorie (Dorothea), his wife of 60 years, whom he met at Cambridge and who complemented his every interest and his very presence. They had one daughter, Elizabeth, and three grandchildren. Their friendships were deep and permanent. Special among them, besides Ernst Lewy of Los Angeles, were John Benjamin from pre-analytic New York days, and Bertram Lewin and Phyllis Greenacre from David's years at Johns Hopkins. A visit of any of these to Los Angeles typically included an evening at the Brunswick's of music, talk, and fun.
Dr. Brunswick was gentle. All who expressed condolences referred to him as a gentleman. He was dignified, but with a twinkle—steady, reliable, low-key. His modesty was so much a part of him that it was taken for granted. He liked to say that his patients analyzed themselves, that he was just there to lend a guiding hand. His life was full of music, culture, and sports. He played tennis until near the end in the same way he did everything else, without push and for enjoyment.
David Brunswick's death evokes not only a deep sense of personal loss but reminds us sadly of a departed “golden age” of psychoanalysis in Los Angeles.
Leo Rangell, M.D.
Los Angeles