THE ANTON O. KRIS VISITING SCHOLAR PROGRAM

The Kris family and friends are pleased to honor Tony by announcing the establishment of the Anton O. Kris Visiting Scholar Program at BPSI.

Anton O. Kris (“Tony” to his friends and colleagues) was a gifted psychoanalyst, an accomplished clinician, and an internationally acclaimed psychoanalytic scholar, known for his masterful clinical teaching. To all who knew him at BPSI and in the larger psychoanalytic community, he was a mentor, friend, and inspiration.

During his long career, Tony was invited to Psychoanalytic Institutes around the country to be a “Visiting Scholar”, where he would deliver a psychoanalytic lecture, and stay for a number of days to meet with the students and faculty of the Institute. Tony valued these engagements, with the opportunity for small group teaching and clinical supervisions in the kind of detailed, attentive teaching that was his forte. Tony’s sparkling wit and intellect challenged established faculty and young psychoanalytic trainees to learn and grow and become better clinicians.

We can think of no better way to honor Tony’s legacy, than to establish the Anton O. Kris Visiting Scholar Program.

The Program’s purpose will be to bring an eminent Psychoanalyst Clinician-Scholar to Boston, for an immersion in clinical psychoanalytic learning and teaching. Depending on the funding of the Program, we envision the following structure:

  • A renowned Psychoanalyst will be chosen every other year to be the Anton O. Kris Visiting Scholar at BPSI. The center of the Visiting Scholar’s engagement will be a visit to Boston for an immersion in psychoanalytic learning and teaching.
  • The Visiting Scholar will give an Anton O. Kris Plenary Lecture at BPSI, open to the larger psychoanalytic, medical, and mental health communities, as well as the interested public. The lecture will be live streamed for distant guests and recorded for future learning.
  • The Plenary will be complemented by smaller meetings throughout the visit with students and faculty, all centered around Tony’s forte of clinical teaching. The engagement may offer individual and group clinical supervisions to supplement the scholar’s visit.
  • The fundamental structure and frame will be flexible, based on the Program’s funding, and tailored to the strengths and interests of each specific Visiting Scholar.

Why BPSI?

For more than fifty years Tony Kris was a central figure at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He was a teacher, supervisor and mentor to generations of BPSI psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. His devoted clinical teaching inspired generations of medical students and residents at the Beth Israel Hospital. With his characteristic warmth, wit, integrity, and incisive intelligence, Tony made major contributions to the development of psychoanalytic theory: modern conflict theory, clinical technique, and the understanding of narcissism. In addition to his own writing, Tony was a steward of psychoanalytic history, especially in his role at the Freud Archives in the Library of Congress. For those of us at BPSI, however, beyond his scholarly contributions, Tony’s presence made a profound difference in our professional and personal lives. As analyst, supervisor, mentor, confidante, and friend to so many, he taught us that analytic rigor is compatible with fostering a generative and generous connection, designed to help us try to be our best selves.

The Anton O. Kris Visiting Scholar Program will allow BPSI to carry on Tony’s intellectual legacy and his personal impact on generations of clinicians. The Program will further allow BPSI to share Tony’s legacy with the larger Boston psychoanalytic, psychiatric, and mental health communities, and via virtual technology, internationally.

Our fundraising goal is $300,000, to establish a corpus to fund a visiting scholar every other year. We have already received gifts of $100,000, and we invite your gift to help make the Anton O. Kris Visiting Scholar Program possible.

We express deep gratitude to the Kris family and Tony’s friends
for launching this program.

The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is registered 501(c)3 charitable organization and your gift is fully tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.