An Inspiring Supervisor, Colleague, and Friend

It has been my very good fortune to have known Vamık Volkan since the early days of my psychiatry training at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, almost 40 years ago. Even back then, Vamık was legendary. When I went for my interview prior to acceptance into the program, he was out of town, so I did not get a chance to meet him. However, everybody I met was raving about him, but having read essentially no contemporary analytic literature at the time, I was embarrassed to say that I had not heard of him. I felt like I had inadvertently fallen into something wonderful, but was not quite sure exactly what it was.

Making that last minute, agonizing decision to follow my heart and enter psychiatry instead of surgery, all I had known about was Freud, Jung, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and Thorazine. I feared I would not be able to use even a fraction of what I had learned in medical school following this path, but what I did know was that I had been a student of human behavior all my life. I desperately wanted to understand how the mind works, especially when it came to the darker side of human nature. Eager to flee the city after four grueling years of medical school, I had a romantic notion of spending the next few years in the beautiful foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, learning from hunched over old men with monocles and faint Viennese accents.

I was, therefore, in for a great surprise when I met Dr. Volkan. He was a larger than life, charismatic, and at times, rather intimidating Turk, who grew up on an island that I had barely even heard of. Who was this man and why was everybody making such a big deal about him? I soon found out. His love of psychoanalysis was infectious and his enthusiasm for everything related to the field was boundless. I was soon hooked!

We young residents fought over who would to be supervised by him for our psychotherapy cases. Because he was in such great demand and because our status was low, things could get very

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competitive and ugly. So, I waited my turn, paid my dues, and begged him for a year and a half before I finally got my chance for personal supervision with Vamık. That was the plum of our training.

It was absolutely exhilarating at that early stage of my career to learn psychoanalytic psychotherapy and see outpatients several times per week while being personally taught by such a master clinician and scholar. In addition, he taught courses every year, which were fascinating as well as being a great relief from the daily realities of inpatient treatment of acutely psychotic patients. While it simply was not possible to integrate everything he spoke of with our current clinical responsibilities, it became a blueprint for my future work. His work on pathological grief and trauma figured prominently in his lectures, and it spoke to me on a deep and personal level. It whetted my appetite for more, but little did I know at the time that much of professional career would have devoted to this realm and directly linked to my association with Vamık.

After I left Charlottesville and did my analytic training in Philadelphia, I was determined to stay in contact with him. I eagerly hoped to see him at national and international meetings. Despite the incredible demands on his time, he always found time to have a drink, smoke a cigar, and share his wise counsel with me. Over the years, our friendship has deepened. His kindness, generosity, brilliance, vigor, and unceasing creativity have been a wellspring of inspiration to me.

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