One evening early in 1988, Mike Allison came to a meeting of colleagues who share an office building. He was surprised to find champagne there. When someone began to propose a toast, he thought the occasion was the welcoming of a new member. It did not occur to him until he heard his name that the toast was to him: the membership of The American had just voted him President Elect.
The first I had heard of the possibility of his being nominated came the preceding spring, when he told me he had been asked to run. He was worried about it. My thought was that indeed he should worry about all the work involved, but he was worried because he was afraid he was not a good choice. I told him he was, and he seemed to take me seriously, not because what I said was complimentary—it was—but because he always listens carefully to his friends' opinions. A week or so later, he told me he had been interviewed for TAP, and said he was convinced he would lose. When the piece appeared, it was quite effective; simple and direct. It conveyed a strong impression of his character. I told him so and predicted his victory. When the results were in, he said that at least I had been right about the election.
I don't think many of us here in Seattle knew the details of his activities in The American. I knew that he was Secretary of the Board on Professional Standards, but I didn't know much more about it than that after meetings he had to stay up most of the night getting the minutes just right. But we knew him well here. An effective and decisive director of the Institute during a difficult period, he built consensus and cohesion in the faculty, fostered an interest in psychoanalysis in the larger community, and welcomed those in other professions into our activities.
I was one who experienced that welcome. He was one of the first analysts I met when I moved here, and his cordiality helped ease an anxious time. I also learned a lot of the local analytic history from him. As someone who has been here almost since the beginning of analysis, he knows many stories and likes to tell them, especially ones in which he appears as antihero. In the early days, almost all the analysts and candidates worked in a single clinic, and people then were not as careful as they later became about contact between training analysts and their analysands. One summer the clinic had a picnic complete with softball game. Mike found himself batting against his analyst, who was pitching, and somehow the bat flew out of his hands toward the mound. Undeterred by that experience, he has remained an avid athlete.
Like his other Seattle pursuits, much of his tennis had to be sacrificed to his work as President. But as it is one of his main passions, he managed to find a little time for it. A frequent doubles partner says that one of the strengths of his game is that he is so unobtrusive that people are surprised at how well he plays: “His serve is faster than it looks.” And he is included in those who underestimate his game. On the court, as in most areas, he is rather self-critical. Quick to apologize to a partner for what he feels are his failings, he is equally quick to tell others they have made a good shot. The same partner says that when Mike is playing the group usually gets along well; in ways so subtle as to resist later reconstruction. He says just the right thing at the right time to keep things harmonious.
This same skill with group process is valuable too in our occasional building meetings. It isn't obvious how, but his remarks, even when they are not suggestions of compromise, or at all reflective of the direction the majority seem headed, have a way of moving the discussion along toward consensus. His opinions tend to be conservative. They are strong, and he makes them known clearly, but he listens well to the rest of us and can be persuaded. If a vote goes against him, he accepts this quickly and without question, though occasionally not without some quiet grumbling.
It's hard to know a lot about anyone else's qualities as an analyst, but I have two special vantage points: he supervised me for several years, and I occupy the office next to his. As a supervisor, he helped me think about the case in ways that led to clearing up my own confusion and getting to the heart of the matter, and he did that without ever being dogmatic or in any way pressuring me to see things as he did. What made the experience particularly pleasant was that even though he questioned many things I said or did, he also gave me credit when he thought I had done something well. It clearly gave him pleasure to notice something good and to praise it. From vignettes he has offered during supervision, in conferences, or in conversation around the office, I know that he has a clear and down-to-earth grasp of what is going on in an analysis and that he interprets simply, directly, and forth-rightly. What I know through the wall is that from time to time his patients are unusually free to let go and yell at him. Our soundproofing is good enough that I can't make out the words, but the affect is unmistakable; at times his patients slam the door and storm out at the end of an hour. Mine don't do that nearly as often, and I have given the matter a lot of thought. What I think it means is that his analysands know he cares about their wellbeing and that he is able to take care of himself. They can yell because they know he isn't going to hurt them in retaliation and that he will be all right himself.
Usually I can't hear him through the wall when he is analyzing, but he raises his voice a bit when he is on the long distance phone—after becoming President Elect, that was an amazingly high percentage of the time. His work for The American was at considerable personal cost: long hours, fewer paid hours, and lots of time away. I had usually been the first to arrive in the morning, but now often enough he would be there talking to people whose time was three hours later than ours. I know too that on those mornings when he wasn't there he was usually on the phone at home, as fairly often someone who was supposed to call him there called the office by mistake before the secretaries had arrived.
Certainly he liked being President, but it never went to his head. His stories about what was going on always featured other people, their activities and skills, never his own. He was proud to be associated with so many people he admired. I am sure he is more impressed with what it means about his wife Jo that she is a judge, than with what it means about him that for two years he lead The American. He seems to have felt some mild surprise at having the job, but had both a determination to do his best and strong convictions about what that best was.
For the rest of us in the building, his being president has been fun. It's meant hearing the latest news, told entertainingly and with vivid, insightful descriptions of the people involved and how they relate to one another. In those accounts, praise has always occupied much more time than blame or complaint, and bragging about his own cleverness has had no part at all. This is consistent with his attitude toward us. He has always been generous in estimating our qualities and accomplishments and quick to give a compliment or pass on one he has heard. His scale of values has been easy to see in his accounts of goings-on in New York (or London, or Russia, or elsewhere). He regards the office he has held with respect. He cherishes The American but, far more than that, is devoted to the good of psychoanalysis itself.