A Dutch psychoanalyst in New York (1936–1950)

Abstract

In this article, the life and work of the Dutch psychoanalyst Johan van Ophuijsen (Sumatra/Dutch East Indies 1882 – New York 1950) is described. Before arriving in New York, he had held important positions in the Dutch Society for Psychoanalysis and the International Psychoanalytic Society. He also made valuable contributions to the New York Society.

Keywords:

• Johan van Ophuijsen
• Dutch Society of Psychoanalysis
• New York Society of Psychoanalysis
• splitting

Notes

¹At the end of the article, I have provided a chronology of van Ophuijsen's life for the reader's benefit. Van Ophuijsen was, during this period, not the only Dutch psychoanalyst in New York, although I have no documentation that he met the others. Dr. Elisabeth (Liesje) Geleerd (Rotterdam March 20, 1909 – New York May 25, 1969) also lived and worked in New York. She was a Dutch psychiatrist, born in Rotterdam, who had studied medicine in Leyden and was in analysis with Anna Freud from 1938 until 1942, at first in Vienna and later in London. In 1942, she emigrated to New York. There she married Rudolph Loewenstein: “Lisje” (sic) and “Rudy” are mentioned in a letter from Kohut to Anna Freud dated February 1, 1966. A second Dutch psychoanalyst in New York was Simon Weijl [Weyl] (February 6, 1894 – October 5, 1987), who was elected to full membership of the New York Psychoanalytic Society on April 27, 1943. He had escaped from The Netherlands just in time at the start of the German occupation.

²Letter to Martin dated April 10, 1993. Martin was the son of Alexandra van Ophuijsen and Jay Vogelbaum. Alexandra herself was the youngest daughter of Johan van Ophuijsen and so the half-sister of Wijne. Wijne's daughters, Olga and Winnie (Johan's grandchildren), were more or less the same age as van Ophuijsen's younger children.

³In an e-mail to me (November 16, 2008), Alexandra van Ophuijsen-Vogelbaum wrote: “Arthur, Raymond, and Mortimer Sackler were all physicians and I think they worked with my father on studies of the chemical aspects of psychiatric disorders. After my father's death, they turned their attention to pharmaceuticals.”

⁴In correspondence dated July 22, 2008, Ms. M. de Jager wrote the following to me about van Ophuijsen: “Uncle Johan was the elder brother of my grandmother on my mother's side, Cornelia Jane van Ophuijsen. His first [in fact his second] wife was a very elegant woman, we called aunt Ans and the favorite aunt of my mother, Jettie. He married four (five?) times, the two last marriages in New York with the same woman, Doris … (the mother of Alexandra Vogelbaum) I have known well; she has been dead now for years. Uncle Johan is said to have been a very handsome man, with already at early age silver gray hair, who fell several times (as was said often to me) in love with his patients. In any case Doris was indeed an ex-patient of his.”

⁵Van Ophuijsen's death certificate was signed by Doris and lists only one marriage and divorce.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

H.P.J. Stroeken

Harry (Professor Dr. H.P.J.) Stroeken is a retired professor of Leyden University, a psychoanalyst, and a member of the Dutch Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association. He has published extensively on Freud and psychoanalysis, mainly in Dutch, but also in German, French, and English. In 2011, he will publish, with Eddy de Klerk, a history of the relationship between the Dutch Society and the IPA.