ARLOW, Jacob A. 1912-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 3, 1912, in New York, NY; died of prostate cancer, May 21, 2004, in Great Neck, NY. Psychoanalyst, educator, and author. Arlow made significant contributions to the field of psychoanalysis by expanding upon the theories of Sigmund and Anna Freud, theorizing on how people intertwine dreams with reality and how these fantasies should be dealt with. Educated at New York University, where he earned a B.S. in 1932 and an M.D. in 1936, he also graduated from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. After completing his internship and residency, he worked at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City until 1951 and joined the faculty at the State University of New York College of Medicine in 1952 as a clinical assistant professor of psychoanalytic medicine; he became an associate professor there in 1955 and a full professor in 1962. Arlow left the institution in 1979 to become clinical professor at New York University and was later a professor emeritus at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He also had an active private practice from which he retired in 1992. During his career, of central interest to Arlow was the role of repressed fantasies on people's mental health. His Psychoanalytic Concepts and the Structural Theory (1964), written with Charles Brenner, is considered a seminal work in the field. It emphasizes the importance of not just revealing a patient's unconscious thoughts, as the Freuds did, but also in making the patient fully understand what his or her mental barriers were trying to keep out. Revelation was not enough, in Arlow's view. He also held that the interactions between people's fantasies and realities were much more complex than previously thought and could intrude into one's waking life as much as in one's nighttime dreams. In addition to Psychoanalytic Concepts and the Structural Theory, Arlow was the author of The Legacy of Sigmund Freud (1956) and editor of Selected Writings of Bertram D. Lewin, M.D. (1973), as well as contributing to numerous other scholarly publications. He was, furthermore, a former president of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the American Psychiatric Association, and was a member of the International Psycho-Analytic Association.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, May 25, 2004, section 2, p. 13.

New York Times, May 24, 2004, p. A25.