As the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society commemorates fifty years of psychoanalysis, Haskell Norman has been named honorary chairman of the birthday celebration—an apt choice, as he has been an active and distinguished member of the Society for nearly four decades.
In 1949 psychoanalysis was enjoying a postwar boom. That year the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute received sixty applications for training and accepted a class of ten candidates. Among them was Haskell Norman. Having come to San Francisco to enroll in a new psychiatric residency program at Lettermen Hospital, he finished up at Langley Porter and stayed on to train at the San Francisco Institute.
Norman s first interest had been neurology, but a friendship with Max Gitelson and a case conference led by Emmy Sylvester (among others) had fostered in him an interest in psychoanalysis. He had read The Interpretation of Dreams on the recommendation of a friend who felt anyone pursuing psychiatry should read some Freud and had attended extension division classes at the Chicago Institute. Gitelson recommended that he not train in Chicago but suggested instead that Siegfried Bernfeld might undertake his analytic education. In Gitelson's mind, analytic training was still an informal undertaking.
But analysis had moved beyond the days when one could seek out a personal mentor and become an analyst. Bernfeld was now on the faculty at the San Francisco Institute and as a teacher there still stands out in Norman's mind. A man who spoke without notes during his seminar on libido theory, Bernfeld was an exciting and stimulating lecturer who could pull together both the theory and the history of psychoanalysis. The entire Institute experienced his early death as a great loss. Another teacher who inspired Norman during his days at Letterman and the Institute was Emanuel Windholz, who eventually became his analyst and in whose honor he recently established an annual lectureship.
There was something of a pioneering spirit in those early days in San Francisco. Windholz, Berlinder, Bernfeld, and the other had limited experience running an Institute, and as a result the teaching was at times not well planned and resources were limited. Norman's class attended seminars before publication of The Standard Edition and the major biographical works on Freud. A reading of Fenichel's The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis and its exhaustive bibliography left Norman curious about the original journal articles. These he began to collect, eventually creating his own working library. The collection grew beyond the journals to include some of the early classics of psychoanalysis. This was not the collection of rare analytic and scientific books that Norman began putting together in the late 1950s, but rather a collection of books to enrich his development as a psychoanalyst, books or journals he might refer to in the course of his day. That collection eventually became the core of the Institute's library.
Norman's appointment to the faculty at San Francisco came soon after graduation in 1955. His first course was on Freud's case histories. His interest in the history of psychoanalysis has continued throughout his long career. He collected photographs of the major figures in psychoanalysis, obtained an original letter of Freud's and donated a number of psychoanalytic first editions to the library so that members and candidates might have a firsthand look at analytic history.
These books, photographs, and memorabilia eventually found a home in the current Institute building. As a one-man committee, Norman had worked tirelessly to get the building constructed. Originally intended as a school, with classrooms only, budget problems dictated that some of the classrooms be converted to offices. Norman became one of the first tenants. The library as it is today did not then exist, only a few shelves in the conference room holding offprints and a small collection of bound volumes. As head of the library committee, Norman corrected this deficiency by converting the auditorium into a library that today houses approximately 5,000 volumes, as well as archival material including the donated photos and the Freud letter.
Haskell Norman's work for the Extension Division represents another aspect of his interest in education. The goal was to reach all the members of the community that might have some interest in psychoanalysis: the clergy, teachers, nurses, social workers and others. In 1958 the Extension Division brought Anna Freud to San Francisco as a guest speaker. She had great appeal to social workers who as Dr. Norman put it “were hungry to hear what she had to say”.
Dr. Norman's life at the San Francisco Institute has been busy and vital. He's made important contributions as a training analyst and as a member of various committees. But he's also enjoyed a life beyond the Institute, most notably, with his interest in collecting rare psychoanalytic and medical books. That collection has recently been documented in a volume published by Dr. Norman and his son, Jeremy and portions of it were exhibited at the Grolier Club in New York. Another passion, one shared with his wife of fifty years, is the enjoyment of fine food and wine. Mrs. Norman has published her own cookbook and collected many more. Her husband is the founder of a food society in Marin County that today bears his name.
Although retired, Norman keeps busy with a few psychotherapy patients and the supervision of graduate analysts. Writing is an important part of his life. A book review is forthcoming in The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, and he has contributed a chapter to George Pollock's book on how psychiatrists deal with retirement.
Haskell Norman came to the San Francisco Institute when it was young and has contributed greatly to its development. Over forty years of tireless work can be seen in those he has supervised and trained, in the building he helped create, and in the library that is so vital a part of the psychoanalytic community in San Francisco.
Linda Goettina, D.M.H. is an advanced candidate at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.