Austin Case, MD
I began reading Freud as an undergraduate in college. I was captivated by his Clark University lectures. Later, reading the French essayist Roland Barthes, I learned about Donald Winnicott's work which deeply intrigued me. By the time I was going to graduate school in Psychology I had decided I wanted to work psychoanalytically, and, to me, that meant going to the Tavistock in London. I never actually expected to get to study there and resigned myself to reading brilliant writers like Christopher Bollas and James Grotstein who made creative use of Klein, Winnicott, and Bion.
I still remember the excitement I felt in 1993 when I heard Austin Case speak at the Alliance Forum. He introduced himself as "just back from the Tavistock" and after the meeting I rushed up to find out more about him. He and Maxine Anderson, MD were just starting to offer public courses through what they then called BORG (British Object Relations Group). I signed up to take courses immediately. In those days, the gathering place was their top floor downtown apartment overlooking Elliot Bay. Later BORG became COR (Center for Object Relations) which still later split into NPS (Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society) and NWFDC (Northwest Family Development Center).
In the early days of COR Austin was a compelling teacher. I had two years with him as the leader of an Infant Observation seminar before beginning my training analysis with him. I was as a member of the first analytic class of COR. Of the dozen people who started out in that class only Judy Eekhoff, David Rasmussen and I finally graduated.
Austin had a reverence for Esther Bick, his Infant Observation mentor in London. He often spoke admiringly of his analyst Hanna Segal and of his supervisors Herbert Rosenfeld and Leslie Sohn. He also valued courses with Winnicott and Michael Balint during his twelve years in London. Meltzer was also an important figure to Austin. I remember Austin's stories about doing psychoanalysis with a schizophrenic patient at Shenley Hospital and of his feeling that no one had a deeper understanding of psychosis than Leslie Sohn. Later I would learn about figures like Henri Rey and Arthur Hyatt Williams, among others, who did amazingly brave work with chronically ill (even mad) patients.
A member of the London Klein group, Austin was a keen student of Bion's work, including his later work. This influenced his interest in fetal states. What I value most from my work with Austin was his deep and sincere sense of the reality of "primitive mental states". Austin's capacity for empathy for early forms of vulnerability and the defenses they give rise to helped me personally and also shaped much of my approach to my own work, especially with children with autism.
Though I never met Hanna Segal, I developed a fondness for her through her writing, and I came to appreciate the depth of her "model" of Klein's work. I often wished that Austin had been a writer because I feel his unique point of view has been largely endangered after he no longer played an active part in the growth and training of NPS candidates. Despite the turbulence of his departure from the psychoanalytic scene and its painful impact upon many people I have come over the years to recover a greater sense of gratitude for what he was able to give to me and to the community in establishing object relations training in the Northwest.
I began reading Freud as an undergraduate in college. I was captivated by his Clark University lectures. Later, reading the French essayist Roland Barthes, I learned about Donald Winnicott's work which deeply intrigued me. By the time I was going to graduate school in Psychology I had decided I wanted to work psychoanalytically, and, to me, that meant going to the Tavistock in London. I never actually expected to get to study there and resigned myself to reading brilliant writers like Christopher Bollas and James Grotstein who made creative use of Klein, Winnicott, and Bion.
I still remember the excitement I felt in 1993 when I heard Austin Case speak at the Alliance Forum. He introduced himself as "just back from the Tavistock" and after the meeting I rushed up to find out more about him. He and Maxine Anderson, MD were just starting to offer public courses through what they then called BORG (British Object Relations Group). I signed up to take courses immediately. In those days, the gathering place was their top floor downtown apartment overlooking Elliot Bay. Later BORG became COR (Center for Object Relations) which still later split into NPS (Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society) and NWFDC (Northwest Family Development Center).
In the early days of COR Austin was a compelling teacher. I had two years with him as the leader of an Infant Observation seminar before beginning my training analysis with him. I was as a member of the first analytic class of COR. Of the dozen people who started out in that class only Judy Eekhoff, David Rasmussen and I finally graduated.
Austin had a reverence for Esther Bick, his Infant Observation mentor in London. He often spoke admiringly of his analyst Hanna Segal and of his supervisors Herbert Rosenfeld and Leslie Sohn. He also valued courses with Winnicott and Michael Balint during his twelve years in London. Meltzer was also an important figure to Austin. I remember Austin's stories about doing psychoanalysis with a schizophrenic patient at Shenley Hospital and of his feeling that no one had a deeper understanding of psychosis than Leslie Sohn. Later I would learn about figures like Henri Rey and Arthur Hyatt Williams, among others, who did amazingly brave work with chronically ill (even mad) patients.
A member of the London Klein group, Austin was a keen student of Bion's work, including his later work. This influenced his interest in fetal states. What I value most from my work with Austin was his deep and sincere sense of the reality of "primitive mental states". Austin's capacity for empathy for early forms of vulnerability and the defenses they give rise to helped me personally and also shaped much of my approach to my own work, especially with children with autism.
Though I never met Hanna Segal, I developed a fondness for her through her writing, and I came to appreciate the depth of her "model" of Klein's work. I often wished that Austin had been a writer because I feel his unique point of view has been largely endangered after he no longer played an active part in the growth and training of NPS candidates. Despite the turbulence of his departure from the psychoanalytic scene and its painful impact upon many people I have come over the years to recover a greater sense of gratitude for what he was able to give to me and to the community in establishing object relations training in the Northwest.
