With the passing of Dr. Edward Joseph, psychoanalysis lost an outstanding leader, teacher, and scientific contributor. He was a quiet and genial man, but a determined one. In the face of longstanding heart disease, he continued to work and to enjoy life until his death of a heart attack on September 24, 1991, at the age of 72.
Although born in the United States, Dr. Joseph lived for a considerable time in Canada, receiving his undergraduate medical training at McGill University. After three years of military service during World War II, he began a psychiatric residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. It was the beginning of a long and continuous relationship. Later in his career, partly for reasons of health, Ed, as he was affectionately known by all, took over the teaching and training program for psychiatric residents at the hospital. He imbued in all of his students a deep appreciation for psychoanalytic insights into personality and psychopathology.
His career in psychoanalysis was especially distinguished. Upon completing his training at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1945, he went on to be an outstanding teacher at the Institute, editor of one of the monographs of the Kris Study Group, and president of the Institute. Twice elected president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he ultimately became president of the International Psychoanalytical Association. In each of these positions he discharged his responsibilities in a quiet but effective manner, made possible by his natural grace and straightforward geniality. He was a person trusted by all.
Dr. Joseph contributed richly to the literature of psychoanalysis and was influenced in this respect by David Beres, with whom he taught the important course on ego functions at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Joseph's papers show a dynamic blend of structural theory and precise clinical observation. In a paper written with Jack H. Tabor, he described the twinning reaction, an important feature of the psychology of identical twins.