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Robert A.
Furman (1924-2002)
Dr. Robert Furman was born on June 27, 1924. After attending undergraduate school at Princeton and medical school at Columbia, he began his professional career as a pediatric resident at University Hospitals of Cleveland in 1948. Dr. Furman practiced pediatrics for seven years, two of which were spent as a physician in the United States Air Force. During these years his interest in the relationship between the body and the developing mind attracted him to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Following his return from military duty, he entered analytic training and simultaneously undertook a residency in psychiatry. Dr. Furman remained active within the departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at University Hospitals for almost 40 years. During those years he also held a position as Clinical Professor in Child Psychiatry in the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Dr. Furman was certified in Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychoanalysis by the American Psychoanalytic Association in December of 1960. Thereafter, he was an Instructor at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute and became a Training Analyst and a Supervising Analyst for Child, Adolescent, and Adult Analysis. He also served as a member of the Institute’s Education Committee from 1963 until the mid-1990s. Long active in the American Psychoanalytic Association, Dr. Furman was a Fellow on the Board of Professional Standards, a member of the Committee on Child Analysis, and a member of the Committee on Membership. Dr. Furman was similarly active with the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, of which he was a founding member. He variously served that organization as Councilor, Treasurer, and President. He was also active on many committees within the ACP, including the Membership Committee, the Future Planning Committee, and the Committee on Financial Development and Donations. In 1994 he was honored by the ACP as the Marianne Kris Lecturer. He published more than 50 professional papers covering a wide range of topics. An early paper was entitled “Handling parental pressure for T. and A.’s” (1959). He published several articles focusing on work with bereaved children. Developmental papers included, “Some developmental aspects of the verbalization of affects,” (1978); “Some vicissitudes on the transition into latency,” (1980); “Some effects of the one-parent family on personality development,” (1985); and “Object removal revisited,” (1988). Papers published throughout the decade of the 1990s included such articles as “New perspectives on preparation,” “On toilet mastery,” “What is day care?” and “Kuhn, chaos, and psychoanalysis.” His final papers focused on the overuse of Methylphenidate (Ritalin) with children and culminated in his 2000 paper, “Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: An alternative viewpoint.” During his training as a child analyst, Dr. Furman became involved with Hanna Perkins, working closely with the school’s founder, Dr. Anny Katan. By the late-1950s, he had demonstrated his abilities as an administrator to such a degree that in 1958 he became Director of the Course in Child Psychoanalysis at Hanna Perkins; training in child analysis made available to non-medical candidates under the auspices of the Department of Psychiatry at Western Reserve. In 1967, when the Department of Psychiatry discontinued its support of the Course, the Cleveland Center for Research in Child Development was established to take over the analytic training program. Dr. Furman served as the Director of CCRCD until 1991, simultaneously serving as the Director for Hanna Perkins School. From 1991 until the time of his death, he held the position of Director Emeritus for both organizations and served as a member of the Center’s Board of Trustees. From the mid-1950s, Dr. Furman was intimately involved with Hanna Perkins. He was co-editor with Dr. Anny Katan of The Therapeutic Nursery School, published in 1969. He led the process in 1979 that resulted in the School becoming the independent and world-renowned organization it is today. Schools modeled on the unique “treatment-via-the-parent” approach developed at Hanna Perkins have been established in Chapel Hill, Houston, and Ann Arbor. |
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