Hanns Sachs Library and Archives Newsletter

Spring 2024

There are others as well as librarians – friends and colleagues – who contributed substantially to the strength of our library. Some of their names may not be familiar to you: David Pokross, attorney for Hanns Sachs, who engineered a gift of $230,000 from Sachs' estate for library use. Renee Gelman gave $20,000 to upgrade the archival room at 15 Commonwealth Ave, named in memory of her husband, Joseph Nemetz. At 15 Commonwealth there was a Child Analysis Room designed by Atelie Rosette to contain the library of Suzanne T. van Amerogen. The Ritvo Foundation recently donated $3,000 to the library in memory of Anna Wolff. Space does not permit naming all the others who have donated funds and their collections to our library. Thanks too to all those authors who agreed to talk about their books for Meet the Author, and to those who offered their art and photos for display. On display now are four stunning photos by NYC psychoanalyst Robert Glick.

Often unsung is the work of our Library Committee members. Rita Teusch, Delia Kostner, Shari Thurer, Malkah Notman, and Lora Tessman have spent years carefully guiding library endeavors, as did the late Anna Wolff and Steven Varga-Golovscenko. 

Now interim co-chairs John Martin-Joy and Jim Barron will be making history as they lead our library in new and different directions. Under their care and with your support, the BPSI library will continue to grow and thrive.

~Dan Jacobs, MD

New Leadership

In this issue we celebrate the history of the BPSI Library as well as the many contributions of Dan Jacobs to the Library Division, at a moment when he is stepping down as Director of the Division. We also note the passing of the torch to John Martin-Joy and Jim Barron, who as of May 1, 2024, are serving as interim co-chairs of the Division.

First, some introductions:

John Martin-Joy is a psychoanalyst at BPSI who has served on the Library Committee. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, he was a book editor at Twayne Publishers and G.K. Hall & Co. in Boston before deciding to become a psychiatrist. He trained at the Harvard Longwood psychiatry program in Boston, where Dan Jacobs was a supervisor of his. Since coming to BPSI he has published Diagnosing from a Distance: a study of the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater Rule and its history (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and has co-edited Conversations with Donald Hall (University of Mississippi Press, 2021), a collection of interviews on creativity and grief with the former poet laureate of the United States. He has a private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Jim Barron is a BPSI faculty member who has written and taught extensively on psychoanalysis in the community, field theory, group relations, and systems psychodynamics. He has worked with the Library Division, held many leadership positions (including Chair of the BPSI Board of Trustees), and is the Head of the APsA Department of Psychoanalytic Education. In addition to his interest in leadership and group dynamics, Jim is the author or editor of articles and books on such topics as humor and psyche, self-analysis, interface of psychoanalysis and psychology, organizational challenges and boundary violations. He has a private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts.

John and Jim look forward to working with Veronica, the administrative team, and the members of the Library Division to continue our good work together and collaborate on planning for the future!

~John Martin-Joy, M.D. and Jim Barron, Ph.D.

Interim Co-Chairs, BPSI Library Division

Introducing our new Administrators!

Katy Kania, MLIS

Kathryn (Katy) Kania is one of the new Evening Admin and Event Assistants at BPSI. They have a Master’s in Library and Information Science and a BA in English Literature. They’ve spoken on panels at San Diego Comic Con about queer comic books, and really enjoy science fiction and fantasy. When not helping out at BPSI, they enjoy hanging out with their two axolotls or swing dancing. 

Max Dietrich, PhD

Max Dietrich is the new Evening Administrative & Event Assistant at BPSI. Before joining BPSI, he finished a PhD in Ancient History, with a focus on Roman imperial history and civil wars. He is looking forward to learning more about the organization and nonprofit development. In his free time, he enjoys reading, hiking, and playing baritone saxophone. 

History of BPSI Library

Sanford Gifford’s history of our library ends in 2008, before we moved to Newton (2014) and before the former chapel at the Andover Newton Theological School, with its vaulted ceiling, became our beautiful library space. No more trudging to the third floor library at 15 Commonwealth Avenue! There are questions I would ask Sanford if I could. Where are the Coriat and Peck collections now? To what “movie critiques? are you referring? I don’t remember any. And I would tell him the bulk of the John Mack papers went elsewhere and that e-mail requests have now replaced phone ones. I’m sure he would be delighted with how much our archives have grown and with our library sponsored publications. And I would like him to have known how much we have depended and enjoyed on his interviews with leading analysts of his time. And that we still use the huge oak table that graced the Peck Library room for so many years.

~Dan Jacobs

Our first library occupied a large basement room at 82 Marlborough Street, which also served as our Institute from 1933 to 1952. It was the proverbial smoke-filled room where all our seminars and scientific meetings were held. Isador Coriat [pictured on the right], founder of our 2^nd Society in 1928, was our first librarian, from 1937 until his death in 1943. He bequeathed his substantial personal library to BPSI, and his books can still be recognized by his bookplate and the relevant clippings he pasted in them.

When we moved to 15 Commonwealth Avenue in 1953 to occupy the Pickering-Ames mansion, the Martin Peck Library was established in the owner’s original library, with a bronze plaque in honor of Peck, president of the BPSI in 1933 [pictured on the left]. This room, with its enormous oak table, was also used for many committee meetings and remained a ceremonial library, with the addition of the Edward and Grete Bibring Rare Book Collection in one of its bays. A working library for candidates and faculty was created in the basement, squeezed between the grandiose oversized men’s lavatory and the furnace-room. It was small and cramped, with a few stacks and poorly-lit working tables. The remodeled and enlarged present library on the 3^rd floor, completed in 1969, finally provided a sunny spacious area for stacks, tables, periodicals and reference books. It was later renamed the Hanns Sachs Library, in honor of David Pokross, our great benefactor who had made annual donations to the library for many years. The funds came from the Martin Freud Trust, who had entrusted them to Hanns Sachs in England during the 2^nd World War. Pokross became heir custodian, as Sachs’s lawyer and our first legal consultant.

The Joseph Nemetz Archive Room was added across the hall, with adjacent facilities for copying library materials by candidates and scholars. The Archives

Room contains our various holdings that include the large Ives Hendrick Archive and our substantial photograph collection, which is in demand from historians of analysis and other analytic institutes.

[pictured on the left: Renee Gelman, wife of Joseph Nemetz, who donated the money to upgrade our archive at 15 Commonwealth Avenue in her husband's name]

The Langer collection of books and papers was donated to our archives in 1981 by Walter C Langer, our first non-physician to graduate from BPSI. Besides research-materials for his book, The Mind of Adolf Hitler, his library included many classics of the pre-analytic psychotherapy movement.

The Suzanne T. van Amerongen Library was established in a 2^nd floor seminar room, including her personal library, augmented by special collections in Child Analysis [van Amerongen is pictured on the right]. The room is also used for our collection of audio and videotapes, with equipment for playing them.

After Coriat’s death in 1943, as the first elected, non-professional librarian and an officer on the Executive Council, there was a series of eminent analysts serving consecutive 3-year terms from 1943 to 1966. They included Edward Bibring, Bernard Bandler, Leo Berman, Eveoleen Rexford, Athur F. Valenstein, Avery Weisman, and John C. Nemiah. Sanford Gifford was elected as Librarian in 1966 and served, apparently unopposed, until 2000. He was succeeded by Dan Jacobs, who became Director of the Hanns Sachs Library, and Dr. Gifford continued as Director of Archives.

In addition to the elected librarians, we have employed a number of part-time professional librarians and archivists. Robert Rich began sometime after the move to 15 Commonwealth, for three days a week, while continuing his full-time job at the BU Library. He was forced to resign because of ill-health in 1973, and after several short-term librarians, Ann Menashi was appointed in 1974. Her invaluable labors included our first photo-history exhibit at Brandeis University, to honor the donation of Edward Bibring’s library. (Many duplicate books were later returned to BPSI.) Mrs. Menashi recognized the importance of our archival collections and arranged for enlarging the tiny prints in the Bibring photo-albums and identifying the analysts in the IPA Congresses of 1932 to 1938. We were assisted by Rick Stafford of the Fogg Museum, who also made a significant photograph discovery of Grete Bibring.

Menashi was succeeded by Vivien Goldman in 2000, who took a special interest in these photograph collections, and during a visit by the German analyst-publisher Hans-Jürgen Wirth, she interested him in publishing the book, Edward Bibring Photographs the Psychoanalysts of his Time, 1932-38 (Psycho-Sozial Verlag, Giessen, 2004). Mrs. Goldman was followed by Steve Morandi, an archaeology graduate student turned proficient librarian. And in 2006 we acquired the unusual talents of Mrs. Olga Umansky, a professional archivist of wide experience.

The daily operations of the library have changed over the years, with greater reliance on telephone requests for references and the use of PEPWeb (Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing), which provides full texts online. Outreach activities include a Library Newsletter, Meet the Author receptions every few months, and movie critiques by Dr. Jacobs and others. The archives continue to grow, with the acquisition of the records of the James Jackson Putnam Children’s Center and the prospective bequest of the papers of the late John Mack.

~ Sanford Gifford, 2008

In the Library

Please see if you have library books on loan ready to be returned. You can either mail them to the library or drop them off during your next visit to BPSI.

Check out BPSI's Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages for news and updates.

Our BPSI RESOURCES page provides an updated list of resources on race, diversity equity and otherness, as well as the Final Report of the Holmes Commission. 

The Library Corner of the BPSI Blog features announcements of recently published journal articles by BPSI members. If you have a publication in press or your recent work has been reviewed, please share your news with our library! 

You can also head to our Library Catalog any time to see what books we have available to check out.

Publications by BPSI Authors

Books published by BPSI authors can be found on our Recent Work blog.

An updated list of recent journal articles by BPSI authors can be found in the Library Corner section of our blog. Click here for 2022-2023 publications.

If you have works that you would like to be added to these pages, please contact Veronica Davis via at library@bpsi.org.

Newest Publication by the BPSI Library Committee

The BPSI Library is happy to announce our 5th publication. It is Malkah Notman’s History of Women at BPSI: The First 70 Years, set to be released this month! Notman details the story of women’s involvement at BPSI, from its female founders through its first seven decades, blending her own experiences at BPSI with historical data accompanied by portraits of the many women who have helped to shape BPSI. 

Purchases can be made here.



Notman, Malkah (2024). History of Women at BPSI: The First 70 Years (pp. 68)

Let us now praise female psychoanalytic practitioners in Boston - they have been there from the beginning. Psychoanalyst Malkah Notman has written a concise, well-researched, and elegant history of women at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI), and, in doing so, has reaffirmed women’s contributions to the field. But their importance has not always been recognized. Rather, Notman notes, the situation of women at BPSI has reflected the situation of women in American society at large. It fluctuates.

Women were among the founding members. The institute began in 1930 as a society, creating the Freud Seminar in 1931, which is now seen as the beginning of organized psychoanalytic training in Boston. The group included four women, physicians who had gone to Europe for psychoanalytic training - the only place where such training was available at that time. European analysts fleeing Nazis began arriving in the US in the late 1930's and 1940's. Notman emphasizes that this influx of European women tends to obscure our awareness that American women had been among the actual founders of BPSI.

Not surprisingly, the original cohort of female BPSI founders did not think openly about gender discrimination because they were the successful creators of a movement. The 1950's and 1960's were notable for the number of prominent female leaders at BPSI. But the 1960's were followed by a period when women were seemingly replaced by men. Notman postulates a number of reasons – possible misogyny, discrimination against women entering medical school (the graduation from which was then a requirement for psychoanalytic training), post-war culture in America putting pressure on women not to work outside the home, the absence of childcare, or the pervasiveness of Helene Deutsch’s ideas that women were narcissistic, masochistic and passive.

Happily, Notman resisted these antediluvian ideas and participated in a monthly meeting of the BPSI Workshop on the Psychology of Women that convened from 1972 to 1982. There were no explicit changes in psychoanalytic theory during this time, but a recognition of a need for improvement. At last various sexual boundary violations were recognized. With the advent of feminism, the importance of pre-oedipal relations and mothering acquired new prominence. According to Notman, the growing interest in gender issues, gender dysphoria, and trans phenomena raised questions about the need for changes in developmental theories.

Notman concludes her book with descriptions of a number of important Bostonian female psychoanalysts. But she cautions that during her active years at BPSI there remained a difference in power between men and women members and that men retained a social sense of superiority. 

~Shari Thurer, Sc.D.

Steven Cooper and Judy Kantrowitz, eds. (2024). Anton O. Kris: Selected Papers. IP Books.  

The work of Tony Kris is a rare treasure for practicing psychoanalysts: He was famous for making grand technical terms work for practicing analysts in their office. What is the actual experience of a patient who is wrestling with a “conflict?” Kris reaches into that most basic term and finds that it may refer to two quite different kinds of quandary, each with its own set of choices. He describes the particular kind of pain that patients fear. (Think how overlooking what’s at stake in one of those possibilities might distort an analyst’s sense of a patient’s struggle!) Likewise, Kris looks sharply at “free association” and discovers the much larger world “free association” discloses if we allow a glaringly obvious resistance its rightful role in “resistance.” —LAWRENCE FRIEDMAN, MD 

Anton O. Kris, MD (1934-2021) grew up in New York City and graduated from Yale University and Harvard Medical School. He completed his psychiatric training at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and his analytic training at Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI). A world-renowned psychoanalyst, Dr. Kris served as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and as Training and Supervising Analyst at the BPSI. For over 50 years, he taught hundreds of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts while maintaining a thriving clinical practice. The author of Free Association: Method and Process, he served on the editorial boards of several psychoanalytic journals, on the Board of Trustees of The Anna Freud Foundation, and as Executive Director of The Sigmund Freud Archives. Among his many awards, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society (2015) and the Sigourney Award (2020). As the Sigourney awards committee wrote, “Dr. Kris’ work helped provide unprecedented visibility of Freud and psychoanalysis, the value of which will be apparent to future generations of analysts, scholars, historians and the lay public all around the world.”

Coming this Fall

Rodrigo Barahona (2024). Negative Hallucinosis in Wilfred Bion's Theory of Transformations: On Finding One's Ghost. Routledge.

Available for preorder October 29!

In this illuminating volume, Rodrigo Barahona takes up the question of transformations in hallucinosis in Wilfred Bion’s work.

The book discusses how the analyst’s functioning, his receptivity and ability to make sense out of what is unconsciously occurring between himself and the patient, and the ability to find words to represent it — the basic psychoanalytic task — is enhanced when the distinction between two basic types of transformations in hallucinosis can be borne in mind: transformations in positive hallucinosis and transformations in negative hallucinosis. In the the psychoanalytic literature, this distinction has not been formally established, with the general term “transformations in hallucinosis” used for both processes. This book cuts a clearer distinction between the two, describing their distinct though overlapping metapsychologies, and charts the clinical implications. In making these distinctions, the book draws on André Green’s work, arguing for a continuity between Green’s negative hallucination and Bion’s theory of thinking and transformations in negative hallucinosis. The clinical implications of working with this concept are discussed in relation to the work of contemporary psychoanalytic authors such as Civitarese, Cassorla, Mawson, and Meltzer.

By drawing comparisons and making specific connections between the work of Bion and Green, and extending these connections to the clinical and metapsychological writings of leading contemporary analysts, Negative Hallucinosis in Wilfred Bion’s Theory of Transformations will be of great interest to practitioners and scholars at all levels interested in the work of Wilfred Bion and this extension to his theory of transformations.

Fred Busch (2024). How Does Analysis Cure? Essays on a Psychoanalytic Method, Psychoanalytic Organizations and Psychoanalysts. Routledge.

Available for preorder July 23!

Building upon fifty years of clinical experience, Fred Busch addresses a central question facing all psychoanalysts: What is essential to a psychoanalytic curative process, and what are the methods of working that can bring this about?

This book investigates the analytic relationship as a process of giving patients the freedom to think the unthinkable (to build representations) and change repeated patterns of action into the possibility of reflection. This entails careful examination of central psychoanalytic concepts such as transference, resistances, and the ethics of countertransference as a guide to a patient's unconscious, in addition to newer ideas, such as the notion of the analyst as a memory keeper of patients' lost objects. In its final section, the book presents observations on how analysts function as part of analytic organizations, and the various roles they take on to develop an 'analytic identity'. 



Continuing decades of significant theoretical work on clinical concepts, this book offers a unique perspective on how psychoanalysts and psychotherapists can work effectively to achieve the best possible outcomes for their patients.

Meet the Author Series

Meet Robert Waldinger, MD, on October 15, 2024, to discuss his book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Study of Happiness

A New York Times Bestseller

What makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? In their “captivating” (Wall Street Journal) book, the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted, show that the answer to these questions may be closer than you realize.

What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.

The invaluable insights in this book emerge from the revealing personal stories of hundreds of participants in the Harvard Study as they were followed year after year for their entire adult lives, and this wisdom was bolstered by research findings from many other studies. Relationships in all their forms—friendships, romantic partnerships, families, coworkers, tennis partners, book club members, Bible study groups—all contribute to a happier, healthier life. And as The Good Life shows us, it’s never too late to strengthen the relationships you already have, and never too late to build new ones. The Good Life provides examples of how to do this.

Dr. Waldinger’s TED Talk about the Harvard Study, “What Makes a Good Life,” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the ten most-watched TED talks ever. According to bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness Daniel Gilbert, The Good Life uses “insightful and interesting life stories” to show us how we can make our lives happier and more meaningful through our connection with others. 

Recordings of past Meet the Author events can be watched here.

New Acquisitions

Below are a few of our newest books available at BPSI. Please email Veronica Davis to inquire about loaning books.

Paolo Beer. (2024). Truth and Suffering: Psychoanalysis, Science and the Production of Symptoms. Leuven University Press.

Although truth occupies a central position in philosophy and the philosophy of science, there is much debate about its actual role in scientific practice. Truth and Suffering explores different conceptions of truth and their profound influence on our understanding and approach to suffering. By discussing how different definitions of truth shape distinct ways of producing knowledge, the analysis prompts reflection on the impact of knowledge production on people's lives.

Drawing on the work of authors from psychoanalysis and the philosophy of science, this book challenges dominant mental health paradigms, particularly the hegemony of biologic psychiatry. It resists attempts to naturalize symptoms and emphasizes the need for ethical and political factors to be consistently taken into account when addressing suffering.

Offering a clear and original approach to an important and complex debate, Truth and Suffering is of interest not only to specialist readers in a variety of fields, ranging from philosophy of science to psychoanalysis, but also provides an introduction to newcomers interested in these discussions.

Daniel Adleman and Chris Vanderwees. (2023). Psychoanalysis and the New Rhetoric: Freud, Burke, Lacan, and Philosophy's Other Scenes. Routledge.

Psychoanalysis and the New Rhetoric: Freud, Burke, Lacan, and Philosophy's Other Scenes is an innovative work that places the fields of psychoanalysis and rhetoric in dynamic resonance with one another. The book operates according to a compelling interdisciplinary conceit: Adleman provocatively explores the psychoanalytic aspects of rhetoric and Vanderwees probes the rhetorical dimensions of psychoanalytic practice.

This thoroughly researched text takes a closer look at the "missed encounter" between rhetoric and psychoanalysis. The first section of the book explores the massive, but underappreciated, influence of Freudian psychoanalysis on Kenneth Burke’s "new rhetoric." The book’s second section undertakes sustained investigations into the rhetorical dimensions of psychoanalytic concepts such as transference, free association, and listening. Psychoanalysis and the New Rhetoric then culminates in a more comprehensive discussion of Lacanian psychoanalysis in the context of Kenneth Burke’s new rhetoric. The book therefore serves as an invaluable aperture to the fields of psychoanalysis and rhetoric, including their much overlooked disciplinary entanglement.

Psychoanalysis and the New Rhetoric will be of great interest to scholars of psychoanalytic studies, rhetoric, language studies, semiotics, media studies, and communication studies.

Lauren Levine. (2023). Risking Intimacy and Creative Transformation in Psychoanalysis. Routledge.

In this compelling book, Lauren Levine explores the transformative power of stories and storytelling in psychoanalysis to heal psychic wounds and create shared symbolic meaning and coherence out of ungrieved loss and trauma.

Through evocative clinical stories, Levine considers the impact of trauma and creativity on the challenge of creating one’s own story, resonant with personal authenticity and a shared sense of culture and history. Levine sees creativity as an essential aspect of aliveness, and as transformative, emergent in the clinical process. She utilizes film, dance, poetry, literature, and dreams as creative frames to explore diverse aspects of psychoanalytic process. As a psychoanalyst and writer, Levine is interested in the stories we tell, individually and collectively, as well as what gets disavowed and dissociated by experiences of relational, intergenerational, and sociopolitical trauma. She is concerned too with whose stories get told and whose get erased, silenced, and marginalized. This crucial question, what gets left out of the narrative, and the potential for an intimate psychoanalytic process to help patients reclaim what has been lost, is at the heart of this volume.

Attentive to the work of helping patients reclaim their memory and creative agency, this book will prove invaluable for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in practice and in training.

Ruggero Levy, Bernard Reith, Augustina Fernández, and Leopolodo Bleger (Eds). (2024). New Tools for Psychoanalysis: Clinical Investigation and Psychoanalytic Training in the Working Parties. Routledge.

Bringing together the findings from psychoanalysts across the globe, this book introduces and describes the research practices utilized by the Working Parties that were created by the European Psychoanalytical Federation and later supported by the International Psychoanalytical Association.

The book opens with a discussion of the epistemology of research in psychoanalysis, then the various Working Parties describe their methodology and findings, and finally, in the last chapter, an assessment is made of what contributions this oxygenating movement has made to psychoanalysis. It examines topics including individual and group work, supervision, clinical interpretation, erotic transference and psychosomatics, and contains contributions from many distinguished analysts.

Providing a wealth of information on the place of research in evaluating new clinical methods and tools, this book is key reading for psychoanalysts both in practice and in training.

Barbara Pizer. (2024). Body Words and the Analyst's Use of the Self: Transforming the Unspeakable in Clinical Process. Routledge.

In this book, it becomes impossible to stand apart from the analytic field as abstract concepts, such as dissociation, intersubjectivity, and unconscious communication, as well as newly coined ones, like "Relational (K)not" and "Body Words," come alive through a vivid unfolding of analytic process.

You are invited into the mind of the analyst as she draws from reverie, memory, and affect to inspire offerings that enliven the moment, moving the analytic pair forward in affective freedom and self-definition. Body Words identify the subjective linkages we make to describe experiencing within and between self and other that leads us to know whether we or our patient are delivering the message in a manner that feels real. Each chapter illustrates how Pizer arrived at this important concept and others in a way that is full of rich, experience-near clinical moments that posed significant challenges.

Body Words and the Analyst's Use of Self is a rare window that allows readers―new and seasoned clinicians of various theoretical persuasions―to become intimate witnesses to the analyst's subjectivity and the creativity of the analytic partnership.

In the Archive

Archival Requests

We recently received an archival request from a researcher at Rutgers who is interested in our Hampstead Nurseries Collection. The Hampstead Nurseries, as you will see below in our Archival Spotlight, were a series of residential nurseries created by Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham to help orphaned children in the UK during World War II.

For more information about the holdings in this collection, check out the finding aid here.

Archival Spotlight

One of the most frequently requested items in the BPSI archives is a set of the printed bulletins and reports of the Hampstead Nursery in London and Essex, England, from 1931 to 1950. Though many libraries hold some of the reports, BPSI's set is unusual in that it is complete; there are many hundreds of pages in total. There are additional later clinic reports on diagnostic, psychoanalytic, and theoretical work as late as 1971.

A residential nursery founded by Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham, the Hampstead Nursery cared for children "whose family life has been broken up temporarily or permanently owing to war conditions," including but also extending far beyond the time of the German Blitz of 1940-41.

The Nursery's three locations cared for children whose ages ranged from birth to 10 years. Some children had fathers in the British military, some had mothers who worked in factories to support the war, and some had homes that had been destroyed by bombing.

The Hampstead Nursery reports were newsletters that provided regular updates for sponsors, foster parents, analysts, and other sympathetic readers, documenting the heart wrenching stories and difficult decisions about how best to help during a worldwide moral, psychological, and family crisis.

On the masthead of the reports were listed many prominent British and American sponsors, including the novelists Thomas Mann and Booth Tarkington, the playwright Lillian Hellman, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and others.

As Burlingham and Freud recognized, the sudden homelessness of these children and their separation from their parents represented both a large-scale tragedy and an opportunity for psychological study.

Burlingham and Freud wrote about the Nursery in their short book, Infants without Families (1944), which was reprinted many times. The Hampstead Nursery provided care and security but also helped reshape psychoanalytic understanding of child development, ultimately leading to an increased appreciation of attachment and the consequences of its disruption.

From Infants without Families:

 "The Hampstead Nursery...owes its whole existence to American generosity...although residential [the Nursery] is not run on institutional lines. It tries to re-establish for the children what they have lost: the security of a stable home with its opportunities for individual development" (Burlingham and Freud, Infants without Families. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1944, p. 7).

Nursery reports from 1945-1950 provide detailed information broken into four sections: Statistics, Medical Report, Air-Raid Problems, and Children’s Problems. Sometimes reports addressed larger themes and anxieties of the children as a group, like this report from February 1945:

“Peace” or the “end of the War” have acquired the quality of magic words for the children. They imagine the world after the ending of the war as a kind of paradise with wish-fulfillment and no frustration, and they expect everything from it, from freedom to “scribble on the walls” (one of the prohibitions in the nursery), to the return of dead parents. They are thus completely oblivious of all the obstacles which will have to be surmounted before they can really return home.”

Other times, the section on children’s problems followed the case of one or two of the children and could span multiple reports, depending on the severity of their case. One such case is outlined below, from March 1945:

“Violet L. is 3 years of age. We admitted her at 12 days old at the urgent request of the Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Airmens’ Families Association. Her mother, a young woman in her twenties, was in an advanced stage of tuberculosis, and was being taken direct from maternity hospital to a sanitorium for treatment which it was thought would last for 4-6 months. The treatment was broken very soon. Her husband, a burly young Commando, could not accept the reality of his young wife’s illness and got it into his head that she should return home shortly after the treatment had begun, which she did. Then, in despairing resentment, he blamed the baby for his wife’s condition, and swore he would not visit her until his wife was also able to do so.

…Then, quite accidentally, we learned that Mrs. L. was dead and that the paternal grandmother was Violet’s guardian. As the death of Violet’s mother had removed the obstacles to regular visits by relatives [Violet’s mother and father still had never visited], our immediate task was to win their interest in Violet, now just over two years of age. I visited the grandmother to find out what sort of relationship could be built up, and what seemed to be the prospect for Violet’s future. At the back of my mind was the idea that the grandmother might eventually take Violet into her own home. To my great surprise Grandmother D. a great, fat, and jolly working class woman was nursing a young baby. I asked her whose it was and she said it was her own – her sixth, born when she was 48 and “her chap” 52 years of age, - 14 years after the last of her other five children… At her age she felt that even (...) two children were too much for her…She and her husband constantly urged [Violet’s father] to take an interest in Violet, but he persisted in his antagonism towards the child.

…In the past six months Violet has been visited with each special “Parents’ Bus” by a widening circle of relations. They are poor, but overflowing with affection for her and concerned to find a way in which she can enter the family circle. After three years of knowing no one of her own, Violet revels in their attentions…Her father has not yet managed to visit her, yet she talks incessantly of the “daddy” she has never seen.

…It would be good to be able to say at this point that a happy ending was in sight. But that is not very certain. Mr. L has suddenly married again, and unfortunately to a girl of whom the family disapproves… The new wife [sic] will not consider having Violet – maybe after the war.

…An aunt is considering taking Violet into her home, partly out of compassion and partly, I fear, in indignation that Violet’s new mother is hesitant… a serious difficulty is that the aunt and the new mother live in adjoining flats, so that friction could be readily aggravated if Violet’s being with her aunt were used as a rebuke to her mother. The attitude of Mr. L is also a potent factor. He is a strong minded young man and may well refuse his sister permission to have Violet, regarding the proposal as a reflection on his capacity as a family man.

…It is probably best that we should be content now with strengthening the family connection, and in making a friendly approach to Violet’s mother in the hope that over a period of time she will visit and become attached to her, and in the end take her.”

~John Martin-Joy and Veronica Davis

On Display

Oaths of Allegiance

In the 1940s and 1950s loyalty oaths became important political symbols and litmus tests in America. In 1947 President Harry Truman issued an executive order that required employees to sign a loyalty oath. In 1950 the state of California required its employees, including professors at the University of California, to sign a similar oath. Loyalty oaths required an affirmation that the signer was not a Communist. For those who had lived in Germany as Hitler rose to power, the loyalty oaths evoked memories of Nazi antisemitism and demands for obedience. Many, including the analyst Erik Erikson, refused to sign.

Oaths of allegiance, in contrast, required an affirmation that the signer would uphold the state and/or United States Constitution. Oaths of allegiance were commonly accepted as part of teaching and state employment.

The BPSI archives contain a set of oaths of allegiance signed by institute members during the 1950s. Shown here are oaths of allegiance signed in 1952 by psychoanalysts Helene Deutsch (1906-1992), an authority on women’s psychology, and Elvin Semrad (1909-1976), president of BPSI and an influential teacher of psychotherapy at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.

~John Martin-Joy, MD

Photography by Robert Alan Glick, MD

Bob, a native New Yorker, is the former Director of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, a Training and Supervising Analyst, and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia. He has written extensively on clinical and theoretical topics in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic education. He was Associate Editor for Education of JAPA. Recently, he co-created Columbia’s developmental educational program for analyzing and supervising analytic candidates.

Bob has always enjoyed taking pictures, but of late he has taken a more serious interest in learning how to use a camera to tell stories, capture moments, and find patterns, all part of the excitement that comes with trying “to see” beyond the surface (as we analysts are always attempting to do).

Bob has a website of some of his photographs: robertalanglick.com.

Please feel free to contact him at: raglickmd@icloud.com.

Recent Donations

Andrew Cohn Donation

Andrew Cohn's donation of his “Children’s Diary” depicts a simultaneous triad of his child’s behavior, the verbalizations between child and father, and the particular thoughts and feeling in a father which partly shape the interaction. Mother-child and marital conversations and interactions are depicted as well. ..how rare it is to find such documentation of the psychic and behavioral linkage of a particular father and child in interaction over many developmental years.



~Lora Tessman, PhD

Tributes to Dan

At a special retirement event at BPSI on Saturday, May 18, 2024, BPSI celebrated the contributions of retiring Library Director Dan Jacobs. There was much warmth; there were also some tears. Dan’s wife Sue sat next to him as tributes were read. Presented here are selections from comments that I and others made at the event, along with reflections from colleagues and friends of Dan’s.



~John Martin-Joy

John Martin-Joy, Library Division Interim co-chair

I’m happy to say a few words about Dan and his many contributions to the BPSI Library Division. I’ve known and valued Dan a long time; he was a supervisor of mine at Harvard Longwood, and as a resident I used to travel to his home office in Brookline. One of his “pearls,” offered to me and indirectly to patients, was his advice to cultivate curiosity, and specifically to try to replace judgment with curiosity.

As most of you know, Dan was born and grew up in New York. I spoke with Dan this week, and he spoke lovingly of his parents, who filled the house with books and loved Manhattan passionately. His mother was an important presence in our conversations: she often took Dan to the theater in New York. These early passions are still evident in the dedication Dan has had for books, and in the fact that he is also a playwright.

As a Midwesterner myself, I appreciate the fact that Dan went west – he attended college at Oberlin and medical school at Case Western Reserve, before he returned to New York for a Master's degree in literature and biography at Columbia. Did you know that at one point Dan wanted to be an English professor? Or (yes) maybe even a hand surgeon?

But as it turned out, a passion for psychoanalysis was also in his blood. As things turned out, Boston was to be the scene where Dan’s passion for analysis and for books would play out.

As head of the Library Division at BPSI, Dan brought a new vitality to what had been a somewhat inward-looking library, rich though it was in oral histories of psychoanalysts. Dan also brought a genius for publicizing the library’s holdings and the work of BPSI authors. He tells me he is proudest of Meet the Author, our series of video talks with BPSI authors about their new books; of the Library Newsletter; and of the BPSI publishing program—all of which he created in large part, with help from a series of BPSI librarians over the years. He also speaks fondly of the art and photography displays he has helped arrange in the BPSI library space itself.

I’m happy to report that Dan has agreed to my request that he stay very involved in the work of the Division—most specifically as head of the Meet the Author program, a role in which he excels. So Dan, thanks for all your contributions, and I look forward to much good work together in the future!

Jim Barron, Library Division Interim co-chair

Nearly a decade ago, I was among the sizable contingent who migrated from PINE to BPSI. Soon after my arrival on BPSI’s doorstep, Dan reached out to me and suggested we get together for lunch to talk about the Library Committee. We met at Pho Lemongrass in Brookline. I remember Dan’s warm invitation to join the committee, and I enthusiastically accepted what was my first official role at BPSI. We began to drive together from Brookline to the committee’s monthly meeting, and Dan asked me to represent the library on the Coordinating Committee, which in turn was instrumental in helping me to understand and acculturate to BPSI as a whole. Thank you Dan for your long-term dedicated leadership of the library, and for your mentorship and friendship at the beginning of my journey at BPSI.

Olga Umansky, former BPSI librarian and archivist

I first met Dan in 2006 at my job interview at 15 Commonwealth Ave, in the first floor library, sitting at this very table, surrounded by beautiful woodwork. [The table she refers to is now located in the BPSI library space, where the May 18 event was held.] I was just coming out of maternity leave, hoping to get back to work. My resume showed mostly electronic publishing and a tiny bit of archival experience. I could see that Dr. Sanford Gifford, who interviewed me together with Dan, was a little worried about too much computer stuff and not enough passion for archives. He was slightly relieved when I recognized the name “Helene Deutch,” and swore I loved oral histories.

Dr. Jacobs looked a bit more optimistic. When he and Steve Morandi, the BPSI librarian, took me upstairs to show me the actual archives, which were lined with boxes, cassettes, and photographs, Dan proclaimed: “These records should outlive us!" I said I could probably digitize them and Dan said, “Great idea!" And that was that.

Little did I know then that I was signing up for many years of amazing weekly anecdotes by Sanford Gifford, wisecrack commentary by Anna Wolff, and some extremely honest opinions by Dan Jacobs. Over the years, all of them became my mentors, friends, gurus, and confidantes. Sanford Gifford entertained me with his need to photocopy every single paper he brought to the archives: he joked that he probably needed to be analyzed about all this collecting. Every time my phone rang in the middle of the day, my little son would scream “Anna Wolff!!!” when her name appeared on the screen. Anna and I wrote some pieces together: she was the fiercest and funniest grammarian I ever knew! And, of course, Dan was always present, guiding us, keeping me sane, and never holding back with advice.

When Steve moved to California and I became the librarian, I realized I would quickly have to put together the entire 8-page Library Newsletter! I loved to write, but English was not my first language. Dan was not worried about my grammar but quickly suggested that my first newsletter was too wordy and needed more images! Honestly, I was relieved to have a supervisor who told the truth. As it happens, I value this a lot. Candid opinions, concrete suggestions, offers to help, reality checks, and only then, praise....when deserved.

Here is one example. When the BPSI library moved to this beautiful space [at 141 Herrick Road], and everything was finally set in place, Dan looked around and said: “I don’t like it! It’s too enclosed. Let’s think of how to make the library more open and welcoming.” He then would not back down until we removed a shelf that was blocking the entrance. All of us at BPSI looked around stunned. How right he was!! The new layout was perfect!

Another quality I really treasure in Dan: he does things with you! He shares the workload. Once he startled me by asking “what is your book shelving philosophy”? Well, I grew up in a small Soviet Ukrainian apartment where there were only two options for home libraries: single row shelving and double row shelving. Basically, we put frail looking volumes in the 2nd row, and attractive books up front. This did not amount to philosophy, so I must have looked extremely confused. Dan clarified: “Do you shelve to the edge or push the book in”? I said “to the edge” and Dan echoed “me too.” He proceeded to go around the library pulling all the books out to the edge of the shelf.

Dan, I want to thank you for your service. I am grateful for everything I learned from you. I am honored we stayed friends after I left BPSI. Dan and Sue, you keep me in awe with your incredible energy, hobbies, music events, young friends, and plans for new books. You really show us how to live life to the fullest! And I think I am not the only one here anxiously waiting to hear about your next adventure! Keep this going and keep in touch! Thank you!

Shari Thurer, Library Committee member and coeditor of Beyond the Binary, a book Dan helped develop

As chairperson of the BPSI Library Committee, Dan Jacobs has not only overseen the library’s evolution from a repository of psychoanalytic knowledge to an active producer of that knowledge, but has also played a pivotal role in shaping its trajectory. Under his guidance, the library has transformed into one of the most influential psychoanalytic libraries in the United States. Jacobs' versatile intellect is evident in the way he has overseen the expansion of the Library Division's functions to include the role of incubator of new books. Recently the Committee has produced a book about early BPSI dinner parties and another on postmodern gender theory. In the works is a compilation of essays about psychoanalysis and climate change. Jacobs is also a novelist and playwright. His latest play, which he has co-authored with his wife Susan Quinn, will open on March 6, 2025 at the Culture Lab in Queens, NYC.

Rita Teusch, M.D., Library Committee member

I have fond memories of Dan, Olga, and Malkah discussing rare archival documents that were either requested from the archives by outside researchers or found in the archives by Olga or Dan. Dan would share his interesting, often also funny memories about these documents, or he would share stories he had heard in discussions with Sanford Gifford about lesser known senior analysts. Dan had such a deep knowledge of BPSI's history.

I liked his strong advocacy to make the library an increasingly user-friendly place; he was a strong advocate of free library services and easy access, as much as possible. He would also keep us on task when the discussions during a committee meeting digressed too far, though he always did so in good humor. I remember him saying that he was a little regretful that only a few BPSI members were using the rich information preserved in the "treasure trove" of the BPSI Archives. I will miss Dan and his steadfast and engaged vision for the BPSI library.

Malkah Notman, M.D. Library Committee member

I have enjoyed working with Dan for the many years that we’ve worked together. I appreciate Dan’s accessibility and creativity, so that ideas that are a part of our discussion develop and turn into actual programs or articles. This was true in creating items such as Meet the Author or interviews with the older analysts, but also with topics that came out of our discussions and our thinking about larger topics that are of interest to BPSI.

I will miss Dan’s leadership, although I’m sure his participation will be a presence that will continue.

Lora Tessman, author of The Analyst’s Analyst Within and Library Committee member, read aloud this poem to conclude the event:

“On Dan”

Everybody is a fan

Of that astounding fellow Dan,

Whose legacy will surely span

Beyond what chief librarians can.

He seems in sync when we detect

A Doppelganger to suspect.

While that we deem as too uncanny,

It echoes what exudes from Danny,

Since when nobody is looking

He sneaks in gems of double booking.

He both has worldwide usage and is cozy.

Dan’s stubborn determination not to be pretentious

Akin to analyst’s stance: to foster but not control or dictate

To watch the “other” grow into its unique self,

To maintain surprise and welcome ambiguity.

Nellie Thompson, Librarian and Archivist of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute:

I am grateful for this opportunity to express my gratitude to Dan for his

contributions to the work of the [APsA] Committee on History, Archives and Library over the last decade. Beyond helping to organize history workshops for APsA’s winter meetings, Dan has contributed to the intellectual liveliness of the workshops in two papers he wrote for the history workshops. The first for the 83rd workshop in 2021, was “The Social Voices of Psychoanalysts: the 1960s and 1970s.” It focused on the émigré Hungarian analyst, Andrew Peto, and his paper, “On Crowd Violence: The Role of the Archaic Superego and Body Image” (Peto, 1975.) The next year, at the 84th History workshop, Dan’s second paper on “Erik Erikson: The Man and the Myth”, offered a highly nuanced and provocative sketch of Erikson’s personality.

I mention these two papers because I think they demonstrate with clarity how Dan’s contributions to our field, while obviously influenced by his work as a psychoanalyst, also reflect wide interests extending beyond the strictly psychoanalytic. I know that I speak for the Committee when I express the hope that Dan will continue, in whatever capacity he chooses, to participate in the Committee’s work of exploring the rich, contested, history of psychoanalysis.

Thank You!

We are deeply grateful to Deborah Choate, Jack Foehl, Ellen Goldberg, Mark Goldblatt, Dan Mollod, Malkah Notman, Rafael Ornstein, Dean Solomon, Rita Teusch, and Julie Watts for donating print journal issues to the library. 

With funds established by Morton and Raisa Newman many years ago, we continue building our child analysis and neuropsychology collections, and our Gifford fund helps to purchase books on the history of psychoanalysis.