In Memoriam

André Haynal, psychoanalyst, philosopher, author of many important books and hundreds of articles, valued International Editorial Board member of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Mary Sigourney Award winner in 2007, Former President of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, Former Vice President of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and Honorary Professor at the Geneva University Medical School, passed away on November 7th, in Geneva, Switzerland. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Véronique, children, and grandchildren. The Editors.

Historia docet. History teaches, and perhaps good history even makes us better people—people who show greater solidarity, loyalty, and tolerance. (André Haynal)

My Breakfast with André

It was late in 2014, when I decided to present a paper at the 2015 Toronto conference, “Ferenczi: The Heritage of a Psychoanalytic Mind.” I was interested in Sándor Ferenczi, particularly his enduring friendships and how he facilitated a natural cross-pollination from other disciplines with psychoanalytic ideas. My unexpected absorption and how moved I was by reading Hungarian literature and poetry was a delightful surprise to me, so much so that my original paper eventually became a book inspired by Ferenczi and his literati friends, The Regulars’ Table (Griffin, 2018).

A few weeks before the conference in Toronto, my original panel was cancelled due to unforeseen reasons and I was added to a different panel, titled, “Exile of the analysts, migration of the archives”, with Judit Mészáros and André Haynal. I was very pleased and intrigued with this change in events. At that point, I do not recall how I had the idea to write to André about my interests but I was compelled to do so. In my letter, I mentioned a few of my favorite Hungarian authors, including the mesmerizing writing of Sándor Márai, a leading Hungarian literary novelist in the 1930s. The next day I received André’s email in which he expressed his delight at our common interests. He was brimming with excitement. He could not wait to meet and discuss Hungarian writers. He wanted to tell me a personal story about Sándor Márai. The Márai family were friends of his parents, their families vacationing together in Italy. He proposed a breakfast in Toronto which he would arrange.

One Sunday in May, I joined André and Véronique and a few friends in the Intercontinental Hotel for breakfast. We all, in some way shared an interest in Sándor Ferenczi. Seated on white leather couches, it was a warm and relaxed atmosphere where André presided. He had saved me a seat beside him. I felt like a special guest and experienced a familiar feeling–of a kind and interested gaze. He was excited, turned to me and began to share his story about the novelist, Sándor Márai. He described what it was like, sitting with both families on an Italian terrace with an ocean view. Márai looked him in the eye and asked him pointedly and intensely, “What are you going to do with your life?” André emphasized to the group, that the way in which Márai had asked him this question was so penetrating and passionate, that he had felt held in this man’s grip, captive without an escape. This question of Márai’s was not the usual cordial inquiry but came from a serious and sincere interest in his future. André said, “I have never been able to forget that moment.” “It has always stayed with me.”

From the very beginning and as I continued to learn about André, I could see that it was his attitude that marked his relationships and interpersonal influence with so many. Ferenczi’s attitude was a topic he and Veronique wrote about describing Ferenczi’s ideas—the greater influence was the co-creation between analyst and analysand, between any two people. I realized that I was in conversation with someone who valued the kind of conversations that are necessary to make a relationship feel alive. In her review of Andre’s memoir (2017), Encounters with the Irrational: My Story, Judith Vida reflected about his way of engagement, “It is the conversations to which we return at each new period, a reflection of how conversations were vitally important in André Haynal’s actual life…” (Vida, 2019, p. 115).

As to my writing project, André understood my desires from the beginning. He knew the meaning behind the German word, stammtisch—a table in a café reserved for regular customers. He was knowledgeable about coffee houses in Budapest in the early 1900s where intellectuals, artists, and writers gathered, ultimately playing a prominent role in Hungary’s Cultural Revolution, and he understood how this milieu of reflection and conversation, fostered the growth of psychoanalysis. I am so grateful for the support and interest I received from André and Véronique in the development of my writing about Ferenczi and his friendships.

He and Véronique came to Los Angeles as honored presenters in 2016 and 2017 for “The André Haynal Salon” at the New Center. After the first salon in 2016, the Haynals and I arranged to meet for lunch in San Clemente. On the morning before I drove south, André phoned me and said, with enthusiasm, “I had a dream last night of the regulars table and I woke up and thought of you!” He wanted to save the telling of his dream until we all met in person. In San Clemente, we walked and talked until we found a quiet café. Seated at the table, he turned to me and said, “Everything we say here is now your property.”

André dreamt about sitting together with a group of friends at their regulars’ table. I took out my pen and notebook, ready to record the dream. He described each person who appeared in his dream in order. He also filled in historical details about a few of them which I might not recognize:

Róheim Géza¹ (He explained, this is how it is said in Hungarian); Ilonka Róheim, Géza’s wife; Edith Gyömröi² (after marring her last husband she wrote her name Ludowyk-Gyömröi. Ludowyk was the husband she met in Ceylon just before the war. She published her poems under a third name: Rényi); Sándor Ferenczi; Ignotus³; Miksa Schachter,⁴ the editor of the greatest medical journal in Budapest, Gyógyászat; the young Alice Balint⁵; Attila József,⁶ the Hungarian poet; and André Haynal.⁷

I took careful notes but my pleasure in the moment surpassed any accuracy of capturing the facts. Here was someone who delighted in sharing his legacy as well as his unconscious experience of a personal dream. The mysteriousness of unconscious transmission – the generous spirit of André Haynal.

He ended his dream story with an offer to help me in any way and said, “I have no appointments for the next 10–20 years. I’m available.” Sincerity, generosity, curiosity, and openness, make a certain kind of availability that is precious and rare.

Notes

• 1. Géza Róheim was analyzed by Ferenczi, and later became the founder of psychoanalytic anthropology. He emigrated to NYC in 1939 and was an important member of the psychoanalytic community until his death (Ritter, 2019).

• 2. Edith Gyömröi, Hungarian psychoanalyst, first fled from Hungary to Prague in 1933, then to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1938, and finally emigrated to London in 1956, where she practiced until she was 80. Gyömröi married several times, and changed her name with each marriage to Rényi, Glück, Ujvári, and finally Edith Gyömröi-Ludowyk.

• 3. Ignotus was the pen name of Hugó Veigelsberg. He was an important Hungarian publisher and Freud’s translator.

• 4. After Miksa Schachter died, Ferenczi wrote to Freud on April 30th, 1917: “Today I am writing only to ameliorate somewhat the mood into which the death of my friend Schachter put me. After my natural father, he was actually the one whom I loved and revered as a model” (Freud and Ferenczi, 1914–1919, p. 199). Ferenczi’s lifelong friendship with Schachter began in 1898, when Ferenczi submitted his first medical paper, On Spiritualism, to Gyógyászat, which was owned and edited by Schachter. Ferenczi found in Schachter friendliness, warmth, a hospitable family which became his second home, and above all an example as a crusader for justice, and ethics in medicine, and love and kindness (Ferenczi, 1993, p. 431, cited in Hoffman, 2011, p. 191).

• 5. Alice was the first wife of Michael Balint, who tragically died at age 40, shortly after she and Michael fled from the Nazi threat to the UK in 1938 (see Dupont, 2002, pp. 355 to 359).

• 6. Attila József, one of the greatest poets of Hungary, was analyzed by Edith Gyömröi in the early 1930s in Budapest.

• 7. André Haynal, author of many books and articles in French, English and Hungarian (for example, Haynal, 1988, 1991, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2018,  and many more). This remembrance of André would not be complete without an acknowledgement of one of his most important contributions to psychoanalysis: his shepherding the three volume Freud-Ferenczi Correspondence (Freud and Ferenczi, 1908–1914; Freud and Ferenczi, 1914–1919; Freud and Ferenczi, 1920–1933) to publication. Peter Rudnytsky (2013), in his moving address at the occasion of the festive launching of the Ferenczi Archives at the Freud Museum on September 29th, 2012, acknowledged “our Ferenczian parental couple,” Judith Dupont and André Haynal. Dupont, the literary executor of Ferenczi’s estate, is “the living link connecting us to Ferenczi, [and we thank her] for her magnanimous and farsighted gift of the Ferenczi Archive to the Freud Museum”. Rudnytsky continues: “Without our other Ferenczian parent, André Haynal, the splendid edition of the 1246 letters that Freud and Ferenczi exchanged between 1908 and 1933 would never have seen the light of day. Upon Michael Balint’s death, the priceless cache of letters was inherited by his widow, Enid Balint. It was she who, in 1983, reached out to Dr. Haynal, recognizing his unique qualifications not only as a Hungarian-born psychoanalyst but also as a professor at the Medical School of Geneva, and asked him to take charge of publishing the correspondence. And it was, in turn, Dr. Haynal who insisted that the only acceptable course of action was to ensure that the edition would be complete and uncensored, and done to the highest scholarly standards. To this end, Dr. Haynal assembled his team, headed by Ernst Falzeder (Salzburg), with contributions from Eva Brabant (Paris) and, for the first volume, Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch (Vienna), and led them in their painstaking research. In addition to supervising the complex scientific work, Dr. Haynal secured much of the funding necessary to support this monumental endeavor, in no small measure from the University of Geneva. As it happened, the edited and annotated text began to appear first in a three-volume French translation, undertaken by Judith Dupont’s Coq-Héron group, between 1992 and 2000. This was closely followed by the English version, again in three volumes, between 1993 and 2000, and by the original German text, also between 1993 and 2000, though this last was in six rather than three volumes. Dr. Haynal’s vision that the Freud-Ferenczi correspondence would take its place alongside all the other definitive editions of Freud’s letters was thus realized, and the outpouring of research and scholarship that it has inspired is the best possible testimony to the enduring nature of his accomplishment” (Rudnystky, 2013, p. 223.)