Tribute to Jeremy Safran
 
Jeremy Safran, 66, was killed in his Brooklyn home. We feel shocked and saddened, and we are close to his wife Jenny and their daughters. Jeremy was a gentle and sensitive man, a friend, and an extraordinary researcher. He taught Psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York and worked as a research director at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. He has been President of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) and has always been an active member of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). We owe him and Christopher Muran some of the most brilliant intuitions on the therapeutic alliance and on the mechanisms of rupture and repair in the therapeutic relationship. Two of his books are available to the Italian readership: Theory and Practice of the Therapeutic Alliance (Laterza, 2003) and Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Therapies (Raffaello Cortina, 2013). 
 
He wrote: “I have never felt comfortable in identifying myself exclusively in a single therapeutic tradition, and my writings show a predilection for straddling the line between various schools and orientations”. Indeed, it was true; Jeremy was able to integrate not only different souls (of researcher, theorist, and clinician), but also different therapeutic approaches (cognitivism, interpersonal theories, and relational psychoanalysis). Jeremy’s pluralism was never a way to dumb down theories and perspectives – it was an attempt to grasp related meanings that had been expressed in different languages. For anyone who reads his work in its historical evolution, one of the things that strikes the most is how clearly the transformation of his thinking come through in his writings. Starting from the long collaboration with Leslie Greenberg in the early Eighties, Jeremy never aimed to integrate different theories because some kind of ideology, but because it was the result of personal, clinical and conceptual research. 
 
For many of us, his research on the processes linked to ruptures and repair in the therapeutic alliance represents the quintessence of his thinking and of his clinical proposal. In his conceptualization, in fact, we find his emphasis on patients’ and therapists’ emotional experience, the interpersonal dimension of his clinical work, and his attention to the here and now in the therapeutic relationship. His work marks the transition towards a dynamic and constructivist conceptualization of the therapeutic alliance. The therapeutic alliance is not a given, nor an a priori requirement. It is a process of ongoing negotiation that in some cases, for example in the treatment of patients with severe personality disorders, can constitute the purpose of the treatment itself. 
 
The conceptualization of the therapeutic alliance proposed by Jeremy (together with Chris Muran) is empirically-based and grounded on task-analytic investigations, a method that allowed the construction of clinical models that describe the different ways in which the alliance breaks down (i.e., withdrawal or confrontation) and the stages that can be usually identified when those are resolved. The meaning of any technical element can therefore be only understood in the relational context in which it emerges, and the technical indications provided by the authors are not standardized manual-type prescriptions, but almost “experiences” lived in the relational frame.
 
Jeremy was interested in oriental philosophies, Buddhism in particular (among his works, I remember his 2003 book Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An Unfolding Dialogue). He tried to accept and appreciate things for what they were, not because of passivity (which was utterly out of character for him!), but because he seemed  to want to grasp their essence. He also used to say that, in approaching the patient, it was necessary to have a "beginner’s mind". We will miss him immensely and will always remember his spiritual tension as strong as his empirical passion. [Vittorio Lingiardi]
 

"The decision to enter psychoanalytic treatment and training was one of the best I ever made. Thirty years later, the multifaceted world of psychoanalysis remains exceptionally gratifying. I have received invaluable training in developing and maintaining a deepening therapeutic process with a diverse range of patients, enabling me to sustain an emotionally rewarding practice - even in the age of managed care." 

"In a larger and relational sense, the psychoanalytic community has been like an extended family for me. A bit like my own small town in which I have made lifelong friends." 

"I felt welcomed by each member I met both during classes and events organized by  SDPC. A few members worked with me to understand which program would fit me best."  

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