The APsaA's forty-ninth president, Rebecca Solomon, a former secretary of the American Psychoanalytic Association and a longtime member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, died this past December.
After serving as APsaA secretary for two terms, from 1975 to 1977, she served as president in 1979–80. During her presidency, there was a major conflict in California between Freudian and Kleinian factions, requiring mediation by the Association. Solomon was involved in proposals to expand associate membership, eliminating the requirement of certification to be a continuing member. She remained active in the APsaA after her presidency, serving on the Committee on Institutes and as councilor-at-large in 1990.
Solomon was only the second woman to serve as president of the Association (Grete Bibring preceded her in 1962) and the first female secretary of APsaA. Since Solomon, only one other woman has served as president: Judy Schachter, from 1994 to 1996.
Solomon completed analytic training and joined the APsaA in 1962. She was president of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society from 1971 to 1973. She was appointed training analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1972 and at Western New England in 1974. She was a member of the education committee at Western New England and served as chair for six years.
Solomon sat on the editorial board of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly from 1976 to 1985. As a teacher and supervisor, she had remarkable intelligence and perceptivity, conveying insight and concepts in plain English. She had great respect for the individual and did not impose her point of view on others. While solidly organized in conflict-drive theory, she preferred to present clinical material in experience near terms.
In her 1980 APsaA presidential address, Solomon spoke on narcissism, summarizing many diverse points of view. Typical of her personality and thinking is this excerpt:
For all our preoccupation with narcissism, we have still to delineate its place in psychic functioning. We tend to view it pejoratively and speak contemptuously of our age as an age of narcissism. But narcissism is not a new phenomenon. The myth of the youth who died of excessive self-admiration is ancient. Excessive self-love is deleterious, but without self-love we would fade and die.
She ended her address with a plea for integration:
This awareness [of limitations of any one theory] will prevent us from seeking “the answer” in any single aspect of psychoanalysis, and will direct us to finding some more answers in the integration of several points of view in the framework of basic psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Solomon graduated with honors from the Yale School of Medicine in 1939. She first trained in internal medicine, then switched to psychiatric training at Yale. She completed psychoanalytic training at the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. Because of her background in medicine, she remained active in general psychiatry, teaching at the Institute of Living and the University of Connecticut medical school. She was president of the Connecticut Psychiatric Society in 1970 and an associate editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1972–80.
Solomon lived and practiced in Hartford, Conn., where she was a powerful influence in both psychiatry and psychoanalysis. She was married to a psychiatrist, Charles Solomon, and had one daughter. Those who knew her described her as quiet, sweet and genuine, with a wonderful sense of humor. She tended to be a listener, awkward in public speaking, but a good conversationalist. Solomon retired from teaching and practice in the mid 1990s after developing progressive cerebellar degeneration.
A memorial service was held on December 8, 2001. She is survived by her daughter, Susan Hamilton.