The PANY Bulletin

Psychoanalytic Association of New York
Volume 39, Number 1 Spring 2001

In Memory of C. Philip Wilson
by Martin Silverman, M.D.

Dr. Silverman's eulogy for Dr. Wilson was presented at the PANY Scientific Meeting on February 12, 2001.

Dr. Philip Wilson died on 8/17/2000, at the age of 79, after a long and productive life. Phil was a man of lofty humility. He had patrician origins but an everyman soul, Robert Browning and Bobbie Burns together. He was born into a prominent banking family (his father founded The Scarsdale Bank and Trust Co., known today as The Bank of New York). But Phil had the temerity and the audacity not only to become a physician, but even worse, to become a psychoanalyst-for which some members of his family never did forgive him. The unique combination of Brahman beginning, replete with a Hotchkiss and Yale education, and a strongwilled, fiercely independent spirit shaped him as a thinker and as a human being.

Phil was a medical student during the Second World War, which led to his being placed on a troop ship as its Medical Officer. He was struck by the frequency with which the anxious young seamen on his ship complained of gastrointestinal and other anxiety related physical symptoms. Thus began a fascination with psychosomatic disorders that was to engage his interest for the rest of his life. Phil was entranced by, in fact obsessed with, the amazing leap from the mind to the body.
I first met Phil when I was a second year candidate at the Institute connected with this society. The Cold War with The Soviet Union and the hot war in Vietnam had decimated our class's ranks. Most of our number had left for military service. From ten we were down to three. One of our classes was with an instructor who was quite renowned. "I can't believe they brought me here to teach just three people," the instructor announced incredulously. This was repeated several times during that first session and again the next time we met. By the third time we met, there was a new instructor. The new instructor, Phil Wilson, did not mind that there were only three of us. I don't think he noticed. He was so delighted at having people interested in hearing him expound upon the topic of psychosomatic disorders that I think he would have been happy to teach a class that had just one student in it.

Phil was a wonderful teacher: clear, concise, articulate, extremely knowledgeable, passionate about his subject, but always patient and thoughtfully accepting of the ideas and opinions of students, to which, so long as they were reasonably sensible, he responded with kindness and respect. He loved to learn and he loved to teach-and at all levels. He was one of the favorite teachers of a whole generation of psychiatric residents at St. Lukes Hospital. He taught classes for many years at the Institute when it was at Downstate and then when it moved to NYU. He led the Discussion Group on Psychosomatic Disorders that met twice a year at meetings of The American Psychoanalytic Association and that convened monthly outside of the American, right up to the time of his death. He acquired a following in that capacity that revered, honored, and loved him-and they continue to do so.

Phil was always ready to teach us here at PANY. He was ever alert to opportunities at PANY meetings to educate us about eating disorders, bronchial asthma, ulcerative colitis, and related conditions; and if an opportunity did not present itself for him to do so he would invent one. "The speaker this evening mentioned negative transference. We always encounter negative transference when we treat anorexia patients. Now let me tell you about it." We needed to be lectured, and he would not shirk his responsibility. If what he had to say was unpopular or unwelcome, or if the hour grew late and people grew restless, he remained unperturbed and undaunted. He continued until he had related all that had to be said for our education.
I've said that he was patient and gentle with students. Not so with his peers. If he believed that he was right, he could be haughty and even brusque. He had little tolerance for ill conceived arguments and no patience at all for pomposity or for personal prejudice. The expression, "He did not suffer fools gladly," could have been made for him.
Phil disdained professional politics and he did not give a whit whether his observations were popular or were not. Curiosity, the quest for truth, righteous battle against the inner demons that transform narcissistic rage into self-destructive psychosomatic disease-these were what concerned him.

Phil lectured widely on psychosomatic disorders and authored or coauthored 31 papers and book chapters. These dealt mainly with psychosomatic issues, but he also published papers on stone and sand symbolism and on the umbrella as a symbol.
With Charles Hogan and Ira Mintz, he edited Fear of Being Fat: The Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia and Psychodynamic Technique in The Treatment of the Eating Disorders. With Ira Mintz, he edited Psychosomatic Symptoms: Psychodynamic Treatment of the Underlying Personality Disorder. He wrote many of the chapters of the books himself. At the time of his death, he was in the process of editing a book on "Body Image in Psychosomatic Disease" and was working on a book on stone symbolism. It was my pleasure to contribute a chapter to one of his books and to have one in preparation for the "Body Image" book, which we shall bring to completion in his honor.

I have first hand knowledge of Phil's decency and spirit of generosity. Phil was The Editor of the PANY Bulletin for years. When I was a third year candidate, he asked me to contribute a book review to the Bulletin, which actually, as a student, I had never seen. He stopped me in the hall one day after I had submitted the review to him and, to my surprise, said: "Marty,this is very good. But it's much too long for the Bulletin. It would fill half the pages. But I'm not going to ask you to shorten it. I'd love to have it for the Bulletin, but it deserves to be published where more people will read it. (How many Editors will say a thing like that?) Why don't you expand it into a book review essay for JAPA or The Quarterly." I followed his very kind suggestion. The essay was accepted for publication in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly and its Editor, Jack Arlow, invited me to join the Editorial Board. Now I am The Book Review Editor there. And I do my best to follow his example.
PANY for a while had a tradition to which I hope one day we shall return. Once a year, we held a PANY tennis meeting. To my delight, I discovered that Phil was not only an excellent tennis player, but with his lively humor and infectious conviviality great, great fun to play with, both as a tennis partner and as an opponent. Over the years, Phil and Chris and Lila and I have spent many an enjoyable afternoon or evening playing doubles tennis together. In addition to his intellectual accomplishments, Phil was a wonderful athlete. He accumulated a multitude of golf and tennis trophies and was a powerful swimmer as well.

Phil could be brusque and business-like. But he also had a warm and tender softness to him. He choked up and cried while he presented a eulogy at a memorial service for his friend and close collaborator, Ira Mintz, not so very long ago. And I remember tears welling up in his eyes as he spoke to me, with sadness and with indignation, after one of the monthly meetings of his psychosomatic study group, about the plight of poverty-stricken children in urban slums who have been suffering in increasing numbers from severe bronchial asthma.
Phil was a loving, devoted husband and father. He is survived by his wife Christine, his son Scott who has followed in his father's professional footsteps and is trying to fill his shoes, his daughter Cynthia, his son Marc, his grandson Eric, and a granddaughter on the way.

Someone who grew up in England once told me that as a young man who was considering entering the field of psychoanalysis, he asked Edward Glover what it took to do well in our profession. "The most important requisite," Glover replied, "is to have had a good nursery." Phil must have had a very good nursery.