Harold Blum has always been known for his youthful appearance and boyish enthusiasm. “But everyone tells me that since retiring as Editor of the Journal, I look even younger,” he said in an interview during the recent meetings in San Diego. Dr. Blum did seem buoyant and relaxed. Having passed through a period of separation, mourning, and surrender of authority and responsibility, he is now enjoying the liberation that goes with putting the job behind him.
“It feels like a sabbatical year,” he said. The amount of work he is doing—practice, teaching, supervising, writing, appearing at numerous meetings, serving on many distinguished advisory boards and committees—would seem too heavy a workload for most of us, but Dr. Blum had become used to handling all of that plus the virtual full-time job of editing the Journal. He has three grown children (of which he is very proud) and a first grandchild on the way. He now enjoys an occasional TV program or movie, and even puts such things on his agenda as a week in Jamaica next February with the family. The family, needless to say, is pleased.
Being Editor was both a post and a passion for him—one which fulfilled his deepest aspirations, but which also demanded that he stretch himself to satisfy his vision of the responsibility and purpose that goes with the job.
In his last report to the membership, Dr. Blum spoke of the special place that the editorship had occupied in his professional lifetime. Now 55, he was only 43 when he began—an age in psychoanalysis when one is considered a relative youngster. A psychoanalytic identity can have formed, but consolidation, maturation, and integration usually lie ahead.
Dr. Blum spoke of the excitement and apprehension of the moment during his interviews with the search committee when he realized he was to be chosen editor. “It seemed extraordinary to me that someone at my age and stage of professional development would be offered a post of such authority and responsibility.”
The rest, of course, is history. His name became almost synonymous with the Journal, and during his twelve-year tenure, while the Journal became the preeminent psychoanalytic publication in the world, Dr. Blum himself became one of the most eminent names in psychoanalysis.
His accomplishments have been amply documented elsewhere, but to refer to increases in circulation, or changes and expansions in format and style cannot convey what is most important. Dr. Blum is proud of these things, as they represent the quality and importance of the Journal. He takes special pride in the unique anthologies translated into other languages, the symposium issues and special supplements, the endowments of the Journal with the Kanzer Funds, the instituting of the Journal prizes, the receipt of the Library of Psychoanalytic Classics, the Harris Foundation's support of special projects, and many other tangible evidences of achievement and honor.
“… the most important qualification for the post of editor is the quality of integrity. Pressures and pulls abound from every direction. One has to encounter flattery and threats. One has to withstand deceit and chicanery. Harold has managed all of these with poise, good humor and equanimity.”
Further, merely noting the prestigious place the Journal came to occupy under his editorship also falls short of conveying the qualities of the Journal that have made it so. Many believe that these are, in fact, Dr. Blum's own qualities, and that these characteristics and talents shaped and came to define the spirit and quality of the Journal during his tenure.
Last December, a dinner was held to honor Dr. Blum on the occasion of his retirement. It was attended by those who served on the Editorial Board with him and every speaker attested to Dr. Blum's character—the personal qualities which have helped shape and create the quality and integrity of the Journal.
The speakers were eloquent and moving, and certain themes recurred again and again. Dr. Blum's youthful enthusiasm, prodigious capacity for loyal, time-consuming work, his spirited leadership, creativity, intelligence, love of scholarship, and devotion to psychoanalysis were touched upon by all.
Many described the workings of the Editorial Board—the way the editorial process worked under Dr. Blum's hand. Here is Leo Rangell: “Letters of the Editor to those who have submitted works for publication are not acceptances or rejections, but psychoanalytic essays on their respective subjects. Not only do papers which are published come out improved and in better form, but those whose papers are rejected generally — not always—feel gratified and moved to continue.
“Unlike many other journals, being on the editorial board of the Journal of our Association is no appointment in title only. No editor would voluntarily miss Harold's semi-annual board meetings where they experience democracy in action. Discussions are educational experiences at the highest level, and decisions are made by all.
“… No incoming member of the Editorial Board fails to have the experience I had when I first came into that function. Whatever cynicism we acquire and come to have as built-in from daily human interchange, is met immediately by an unexpected refreshing and bracing wind.”
Peter Neubauer wondered how such a strong-minded, outspoken, and knowledgeable man could also be so patient, open to the ideas of others, fair-minded, and generous. It is, he decided, Dr. Blum's “limitless curiosity.” “He wants to know and to pursue a subject as far as it can go.”
Margaret Mahler, in tongue-in-cheek metapsychological language, stressed his generous spirit: “The few times I had the opportunity to read his letters of evaluations and assessments as well as criticisms, and even rejections of material submitted for publication, I realized—before I even knew Dr. Blum personally—that this editor had not only superior intellect, but a sound surplus of libido over aggression.”
Importantly, all who paid tribute pointed to Dr. Blum's curiosity about and receptivity to new ideas, while not yielding to the merely new, and to his being a firm, critical, cautious intelligence, unwilling to compromise the
hard-won body of clinical observation and theory which is the historical legacy of psychoanalysis.
All agreed that his mastery of the vast literature in our field over the years of his editorship was awe-inspiring. His many contributions to the literature reflect this mastery, as well as his own originality, and he integrated this creative scholarship into his editor's role. Dr. Rangell quoted a line from one of Dr. Blum's papers: “Insight is a creative act,” and then declared that Dr. Blum himself embodies this idea. “Wherever I turned to any papers of Harold's, I acquired new quotes for my own work.”
In the world of psychoanalytic ideas, all agreed, Dr. Blum balances historical breadth and perspective, multiple points-of-view, a nonreductionistic approach, originality, and an open mind.
Jacob Arlow captured the interplay of a multifaceted personality with a multifaceted and difficult job in a portion of his tribute to Dr. Blum:
“There are many facets to being an editor and some editors in chief excel in one department or another. Some can stimulate good contributions or tease out the significant from the insignificant papers. Others have a talent for the style, or the format, or the circulation problems of a journal. In Harold's case, he excelled in each and every one of these departments. In my experience in the American Psychoanalytic Association, I do not recall anyone having fulfilled a responsibility with such depth and breadth as Harold.
“… being editor in chief is fundamentally a lonely job. The responsibility is awesome, for he is the final arbiter of what ideas see the light of day and become part of the general domain of psychoanalytic thought. Exercising such authority to a very considerable degree, the editor sets his imprint, his views and his understanding on the nature and the direction of psychoanalysis. Doing this, he must be discerning, objective and fair minded, yet firm enough not to yield to popular trends or to personal influences when pressure is brought to bear upon him by partisan zealots.
“In the past ten years in particular, many new concepts have entered the marketplace of ideas in psychoanalysis. Controversy has been sharp and at times impassioned. On the whole, sober judgment indicates that, under the editorship of Dr. Blum, new concepts have been afforded exposure and currency. It was part of Harold's fair-mindedness and integrity that he made possible both special issues and forums for discussion of new and controversial ideas in psychoanalysis.“
Others also spoke of his having fulfilled a great responsibility, utilized a wide array of talents, and of his striving to integrate his vision of the new with his “encyclopedic” knowledge of what we had already attained. Peter Neubauer described his style as one of “orchestration.” And all attested to his great integrity. Again, here is Dr. Arlow:
“… the most important qualification for the post of editor in chief … is the quality of integrity. Pressures and pulls abound from every direction. One has to encounter flattery and threats. One has to withstand deceit and chicanery. Harold has managed all of these with poise, good humor and equanimity. And in all the time that he was Editor, he never expressed feelings of anguish and frustration.”
Dr. Blum recalled, in this context, that when he first took the job, he had a “psychological plan,” which included a great deal of consultation and dialogue with respected and knowledgeable colleagues. But the final decisions were his, and some of his most painful moments were of having to bear inevitable anger, disappointment, and criticism—sometimes from people he had venerated, or from people having ideas with which he was actually in sympathy.
The post draws much transference, and from every idealogical persuasion. He has been accused both of being too conservative and too liberal and he supposed that it might be a good sign that this was the case. “I learned a great deal more about countertransference and how to delay and reflect before responding,” he said.
Dr. Blum did not appear embarrassed by all of the flattering words said about him, although he was clearly pleased and grateful. The thing that moved him most, he said, was to be told that he has been an inspiration to others. He has left a legacy—to grateful authors, to inspired colleagues, and to all of us for whom the Journal reflects something of our own professional identity—and he himself has become an elder statesman of pschyoanalysis.
As one who has been inspired, taught, and gratified by the great ideas and respected elders of the past, he shook his head a bit in disbelief and wonder as he pondered the deep and somewhat newer satisfaction of being a teacher and inspirer of the generations to follow. It is this, he reflected, that finally is the most gratifying thing he has taken from these years, and the accomplishment of which he is most proud. But, he added, if he is to be an elder statesman, he wants it known that he sees himself as one of our younger elder statesman.
Related to this is his view of the immediate future of psychoanalysis. He sees years of ferment ahead for psychoanalysis. The death of Anna Freud represents for him the symbolic passing of an age—a time when in confusion or uncertainty we could turn to our elders to tell us what is or is not psychoanalysis. Today's new elder statesmen, like himself, he noted, have the difficult job of becoming neither separated from nor complacent within that tradition and being effective transmitters of it to their students, while remaining intellectually vigorous, open-minded, and young. Whatever new jobs Dr. Blum takes on, he will take on in this spirit. And, no doubt, he will do them devotedly, well, and surely with great youthfulness.