1

Interview with Jacob Arlow on his Relationship with Margaret Mahler

By Alma H. Bond, PhD.

Author of Margaret Mahler: A Biography of the Psychoanalyst

June 8, 2003

“My relationship with her was almost exclusively professional,” Dr. Arlow quickly began. “I remember the paper I introduced her with at UJA. It was about children and very moving. She was a very interesting person, not run of the mill. I met her in 1941, at the Psychiatric Institute. I was a resident of . She had just come over from Europe. For the first time the

Psychiatric Institute was programmed for child psychiatry, specifically child analysis. We had a wonderful introduction to it.. Margaret arranged for a semi circle of the kind of children’s stools that you see in kindergarten. She sat on one in the center and the child patient would sit next to her. It struck me as incongruous, how you could get a child to talk in front of all those people.

But as the session went on, everybody disappeared except Margaret and the little child she was talking to. Years later she said, ‘It must have been very difficult for you to understand me, with my awful accent.’ I said, ‘I don’t remember you having any accent at all during those interviews.’

“The weekly meetings with her were examples of child psychotherapy at its best. They were the highlights of our week at the Psychiatric Institute. Come to think of it, it was the only organized program of instruction to which we were exposed. Psychiatric training in those days was not as it is now. There was no real four year program in any particular institution. The course of our development was not favored by a structured form of curriculum. We had to do it on our own, so the experience with Margaret was a particularly enriching one.

“I made an impression on her in a very unusual way. If you can imagine, before the day of

2

tape reporters, someone in the Psychiatric Institute had made available to us a wax cylinder

recording machine, like an old fashioned phonograph recording. There was a central waxed tube.

As you dictate the message, it was imprinted on the tube and then you could it back. It was a

new gadget, and one that usually intrigued child patients. I think I was the only one of the

residents that used it, although I may be mistaken. I had a very interesting young patient, an

aggressive ten or eleven year old boy. He was intrigued by the machine. After a few playful runs

to show him how it worked, I began to engage him into the details of his fantasies and his behavior. Mahler was completely taken with what I brought to her. So I made a very strong and lasting impression.

“This may be looked upon as self serving. Years later, she said, ‘You were the most talented student I ever had, and I thought you would be just right for child analysis. Why didn’t you become a child analyst?’ My answer was not completely genuine. I said, ‘I never thought of it.

If you had told me, I might have done it.’ That’s not quite true. I had a busy practice and was raising a family. It was no time to make the significant sacrifice that training in child analysis would have entailed.

“I don’t know how much you have learned about the child analysis wars in the

Institute. I was not involved directly in them at all, but I realized there was a disrespect for

Margaret. There was a split between Mahler and Berta Bornstein, who had the support of such important people as Marianna Kris on her side. For the longest time, as far as I can recall, the voice of Mahler was not heard much in child analysis discussions in New York. The rejection moved her to put down teaching rules in Philadelphia for child analysis. She was a no-nonsense lady, and said things straight, as she thought them. As a result I’m sure she experienced many

3 painful moments at the meetings of the New York institute and elsewhere. This was equally true of , when she gave some seminars in NY, and repeatedly rebuffed Mahler with the things she had to say. There was something about Anna Freud which was part of their interaction. This didn’t just apply to Margaret Mahler, but to former analysands like Erik

Erickson. Recently, for example, there was a big Anna Freud meeting in Philadelphia in a church which had a huge capacity for the audience. The meeting had been structured around Anna

Freud. It consisted of two days of panels, in which Anna Freud and others participated. There was an interesting contrast of how Anna Freud reacted differently to other people. At the time Heinz

Kohut was still in line and was for the moment a favorite of Anna Freud’s. The panel was composed of Anna Freud, Kohut, and Martin Stein, a down-to-earth, straight from the shoulder psychoanalyst, who saw things and described them as he saw them. She was dismissive, and would not even bestow upon him the usual collegial acceptance which ordinarily is a part of every panel discussion. It was almost painful to deserve how Erickson behaved like a little boy trying to ingratiate himself totally unsuccessfully with a rejecting parent figure. I don’t recall if

Margaret participated in the meeting. There was a time, however, when Anna Freud appeared at the New York Institute, in at least one session with her and the faculty. I can still see a picture of

Margaret Mahler on the first row, first seat to the right, and I have a feeling that some kind of rebuff was administered to her at that time. Anna Freud used to have a biennial or annual reading at the Freud center in London, where a select group of analysts were invited to attend and participate. I remember Margaret listening attentively, but I do not recall exactly what interchange there was between her and Anna Freud.

4

“Shortly after my first heart attack, I went to that meeting. Not a whiff of reference to

Margaret Mahler was made. I remember being in the library where the meetings were held and

looking for her books. I don’t recall coming across more than one.

“What divided them so deeply is hard for me to imagine, but the division was complete

and unequivocal.

“After that, there was very little that I did along scientific lines with Margaret, except that

I found more occasions to refer to her clinical work than to that of Anna Freud. I was surprised

or reminded recently when I came across some of my papers how much I had been influenced by

Margaret’s formulations. I recently was looking over some of the items in my bibliography, and

was not at all surprised to see that in every paper that I wrote about children Margaret Mahler

was probably in the bibliography. But professionally I had very little to do with her after that

time.

“We remained friendly socially all the time. It was a great age of psychoanalytic cocktail

parties, so that friendships remained within the age level of your colleagues. Our relations were

always cordial, but I had a distinctly different position than most of the other colleagues, in so far

as I was a commuter analyst. It was a time when my children were growing up. I was living in

Great Neck and practicing in the city. There was a period for two or three years when I had my

office in the same building as Margaret.

“That reminds me of a common link to Margaret. Bluma Swerdloff was another occupant

of the same building. We were friends during our college days, and were both members of a

group of young Jewish kids being trained by the Bureau of Jewish Education, financed by

several Jewish philanthropists to assume the leadership of Jewish education in the .

5

“I’m a littler different with my elders than with people of my age. For instance in a study group that several people and I established with Hartmann, Kris, and Lowenstein, I could never get to call Hartman Heinz, the way Charlie Brenner could.

“Margaret was so straight forward; maybe that’s not a good thing in an analyst. I never saw her in a temperamental outburst, but it is easy to see that she was not a woman who was easily crossed, especially if she was in control. She was a difficult person, but I didn’t reach the degree of working together in intimate projects, where such flair-ups are likely to occur.

“I think she was an important contributor to , mostly because she was such a keen observer. I never had the feeling that her scientific ideology overrode the conclusions that she drew from observing the direct situation. Her work stands the judgement of time, like so many other psychoanalytic concepts.”

“Dr. Arlow,” I said hesitantly, “I know you said you wished to discuss only your professional relationship with Dr. Mahler and not your personal one. But I would like to ask you one personal question. Please don’t answer, if you don’t want to. (He remains silent. I continue.)

“I was told that you were in love with Margaret Mahler. Is that true?”

“Who told you that? It must have been Leo Rangell. He was the only one who knew me well enough to say such a thing. Rangell and I were very close, we became closest friends. I wish

I could recall my feelings about Margaret. If I think about it, I would say I was more inclined to have feelings about her than Marianne Kris and Anna Freud. For a long time I had the feeling that Anna Freud was probably favorably disposed to me. Maybe I should apologize in advance for telling this story. Just after I had my first heart attack, I went to a psychoanalytic meeting.

One of Anna Freud’s students presented a very good case presentation in which she showed the

6 connection between inner rebelliousness at the restrictions of society, with emphasis on the super-ego, and the creative impulse. I made some comments which perhaps were unnecessarily ostentatious. Then something changed in her attitude toward me, because one of the articles written about her after she died said that she liked to read psychoanalytic literature, particularly that written by Jacob Arlow.

“If I was in love with Margaret Mahler, the most likely source would be Leo Rangell, I arrived six months earlier at the Institute, and he also had some findings which enabled him to write a paper with her. There was one time we were both doing some research on the literature at the New York Academy of Medicine. If there is any source for the remark, the source would be him. He has a bit magnified his role, which impresses people when they first meet him, and then realize what he is doing. In recent years, a certain grandiose tendency undermines his mind and personality. It’s possible I had a great crush on Margaret, but I have no recollection of being in love with her. Check with Bluma whether she remembers how I felt trans-professionally about

Margaret Mahler.

“But it is true that most people who had any long standing relationship usually became a cropper in some way. As Bertram Lewin said, ‘Many of them were couch sweethearts, in love with their analysts.’ If I went through such a phase, I have forgotten it.

“My lasting impression of Margaret Mahler is that she was kind of a embattled woman.

The word ‘dour’ comes up in connection with her. There was always that aspect with her, even when she was younger. I don’t recall her kidding around, joking, or making word plays, but that might have been my stiffness. That’s why the idea of being in love with her seems so fascinating.

Although there was a time I felt she had great contributions to make, I don’t recall having the

7 affect that is part of the picture of being in love. Maybe it was idealization, which is a form of love. I always felt there was a toughness about her which foreordained a distance to be kept between her and other people.”

“Thank you, Dr. Arlow,” I said, “for your fascinating comments. I feel privileged to have spoken with you.”