Anne-Marie Sandler (1925-2018)
On behalf of the IPA Administration and Board, we would like to express our deep sadness for the loss of our distinguished colleague Anne-Marie Sandler. Anne-Marie Sandler was a Training Analyst in adult, adolescent and child analysis and a Distinguished Fellow at the British Psychoanalytic Society. Born in December 1925 in Geneva, she moved to London in her twenties, where she trained as a child analyst at the Hampstead Clinic and then as a psychoanalyst at the British Psychoanalytical Society. She had a remarkable career on an institutional level, as President of the European Psychoanalytic Federation (1983 – 1987), President of the British Psychoanalytical Society (1990 – 1993), Director of the Anna Freud Centre (1993 – 1996), as well as a Vice-President of the International Psychoanalytical Association (1993 – 1997). Her scientific contributions are well-known at an international level and she published a number of seminal papers with Joseph Sandler in which they reviewed basic psychoanalytic concepts. In 1998 she was awarded the prestigious Sigourney Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Psychoanalysis. As a great supporter of child and adolescent analysis, she contributed to the creation of the IPA Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis Committee (COCAP) and became its first overall Chair in 1997, during Otto Kernberg’s Administration. This was when child and adolescent psychoanalysis found its place within the IPA structure, after occupying an informal space for many years. She was a mentor to many child analysts as well as a significant contributor to psychoanalytic theory and technique in this field. On a personal level, I had the honour and pleasure of working with Anne-Marie during the time when COCAP was created, and I profoundly admired her passion for child analysis. I will always remember her elegance, warmth and kindness, her sensitivity, creativity and open-mindedness, which made her so admired by her colleagues and students. She was an inspiration to all those whose lives she touched. She will be greatly missed.
Virginia Ungar, IPA President.
Read the
obituary by the IPA Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis (COCAP).