Homer Curtis, who died on June 3, 2013, at the age of 96, was an influential figure in the world of American psychoanalysis. He played a major role in the opening up of the Association to psychologists as the chair of BOPS (1982-1985) and then as president of APsaA (1988-1990). Characteristically, Curtis found a path, unrecognized by many others, that enabled him to recognize the worthiness of psychologists for training in combination with a commitment to excellence in psychoanalytic education in our institutes. Such a combination, he believed, would benefit APsaA and psychoanalysis in general. If he and his committee had been able to get the American Psychoanalytic Association to move administratively on implementation, the psychologists' lawsuit would not have occurred. Robert Wallerstein extensively documents Curtis's activities in this matter in his excellent book, Lay Analysis. Life Inside the Controversy.
Curtis was born and raised in Salt Lake City, the middle of five children in a Mormon family. He met and married Enid Ashton, his wife of almost 72 years, and together, they had seven children. He is survived by his wife, six of his children, 15 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. As a young man, he went on a Mormon mission to Germany just two years before the start of World War II. During the war, he served as a medical corpsman. He graduated from the University of Utah Medical School in 1944 and after a year of internal medicine residency, began his psychiatric training while a lieutenant in the Army Reserve. He completed his residency in psychiatry at the former Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital (1950), where he later became senior attending psychiatrist.
A colleague, Ira Brenner, recalled, “During one of the last days before the Institute (once one of the finest psychiatric hospitals in the nation) closed, I encountered him again in an empty corridor and saw that his eyes were red and full of tears. He said to me, ‘I have been here for 50 years and I cannot believe this place is closing.‘ I felt very close to him at that painful moment and it made a deep and lasting impression upon me. I felt his warmth, humanity, and his very deep caring.”
As an educator and supervisor, Curtis trained generations of clinicians and inspired many to become psychoanalysts. He was professor of psychiatry at Hahnemann Medical College (now part of Drexel University) and at the University of Pennsylvania, and he was a training and supervising analyst at the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis (and its president from 1970 to 1972) and at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia (PCOP), following its merger with the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Society. Curtis was the executive councilor from the Philadelphia Association from 1962-1973, and a councilor-at-large from 1973-1977. He held many other offices in Philadelphia and in APsaA. In 1990, along with others, Curtis founded the Russian American Education Exchange to advance the training and practice of psychoanalysis in Russia. Subsequently, he participated and chaired the American New Groups Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
In contrast to some senior analysts who have been said to “eat their own offspring,” Homer Curtis, as a senior colleague, was especially nurturing, facilitative, kindhearted, and appreciative. In his quiet grandfatherly way, he never said a personally critical word and was approving, warm, involved, energetic, and encouraging, particularly with respect to the reunification and subsequent development of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, which meant a great deal to him, as did the future of psychoanalysis. Curtis had been a candidate when the split occurred, and, having an inherently practical nature, the illogic of the split In the Philadelphia Institute never made sense to him, especially as he knew, respected, and worked with analysts of both groups. He stated on many occasions that he never gave up hope that reunification would occur some day. In 2006, PCOP named him, along with William O'Brien and the late Leo Madow, as Wise Elders and dedicated a classroom in their honor.
Homer Curtis's speaking style could seem a bit stiff and sober at first, but his slow, deliberate delivery always allowed his meaning to be crystal clear and it set up the audience for his wry sense of humor with the well-timed jokes that he often used to illustrate his point. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of classical psychoanalytic ego psychology, but he was always receptive to new ideas. He was an excellent and revered teacher and a flexible and supportive supervisor. Curtis taught the ego psychology course at the Philadelphia Association for over 20 years, and other courses on subjects such as transference/countertransference, analyzability, terminal phase, and continuous case seminars.
Homer Curtis authored a number of articles over the course of his long career. Some topics included “The Concept of the Therapeutic Alliance” (1979), “Predicting the Outcomes of Psychotherapy” (with Lester Luborsky, 1982), “The Educational Prerequisites for Psychoanalytic Training” (1982), “Construction and Reconstruction” (1983), “Clinical Perspectives on Self Psychology” (1985), “Impasses in Psychotherapy” (1992), “Psychoanalytic Ecumenism, the Varieties of Psychoanalytic Experience” (1982), and numerous other presentations and papers.
Homer Curtis was short in height, but a giant in stature and accomplishment. He will be missed.
Ralph E. Fishkin, D.O., is secretary of the American Psychoanalytic Association.