Memorial to Madeleine Page--by Linda Hopkins (January 10, 2004)
I have been asked to address in particular the way that Madeleine was
involved in the field of psychoanalytic psychology and her contributions
there. One of the most important things to say here is that Madeleine
was driven to study psychoanalysis. She sold her house and all her
possessions in Canada in order to get her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
and there is every reason to think that she would have gone on to become
a psychoanalyst. Madeleine lived psychoanalysis--she had been analyzed
in Canada and when she came to Philadelphia and to Widener, she was
always seeking out opportunities to work in the psychoanalytic
subspecialty of psychology. This is how I came to meet her--when I
introduced myself to her, wanting to know her, after hearing her
comments after a talk at the local psychoanalytic psychology group,
PSPP. I told Jane that Madeleine was a "find"--a new woman, our own
age, who had similar interests and a great mind. Madeleine ended up
doing an internship with Jane at Haverford College, which provides
psychoanalytically oriented treatment to students through the Counseling
Center--a position that she loved. Psychoanalysis was her passion and
she didn't mind that she had sacrificed so much to pursue it.
Madeleine did her dissertation at Widener on the topic of the work of
Donald Winnicott. He is a man who is perhaps the most influential
analyst since Freud, an English analyst who died in 1971 after making
major contributions in the subspecialty called object relations.
Madeleine focused on a particular aspect of Winnicott --she looked at
the fact that Winnicott is idealized as a kind of saint or perfect
mother figure, and she explored why that happened and what it implied
about Winnicott's personality. This was how she was: she liked to
deconstruct and critique things. It was why I loved to sit next to her
at psychology conferences--she was almost always critical of what was
being said, but her critique was in the context of respect for the
speaker and it was never malicious.
Madeleine barely had time to graduate from Widener, let alone start to
influence our field with her unique voice. Her dissertation, which I
knew well because I was on her committee, laid out the scholary base of
Winnicott's contributions and them proceeded with a brave and fresh
critique. People in the field know how rare it is for anyone to
critique Winnicott. Had she lived, I think she would have found a
publisher so that the dissertation could become a book and perhaps that
will still happen. Madeleine had a lot to say, but she had only just
begun to say it.
While Madeleine was writing her dissertation on Winnicott, I happened to
be writing a book about Winnicott's chief disciple, an analyst named
Masud Khan. It seems appropriate to quote from something Khan said in a
memorial to Winnicott, who died in 1971.
I think these words describe Madeleine as well as Winnicott, and perhaps
help explain why she had chosen him as a person to study: "[Winnicott]
could be so still, so very inheld and still. I have not met another
analyst who was more inevitably himself. It was this quality of his
inviolable me-ness that enabled him to be so many different persons to
such diverse people. Each of us who has encountered him has his OWN
Winnicott . . . And yet he always stayed so inexorably Winnicott." (p. xi)
Each of us has our own Madeleine. It is amazing to see how many
different people Madeleine was involved with, how many different kinds
of people. I am surprised as I think about it now how little I knew
about Madeleine's non-psychology worlds. Madeleine came from England?
She had half brothers there? She had been married, she had lived in the
Caribbean--doing what? Ottawa? Madeleine is hugely involved in an
internet community? Madeleine is mentioned on the front page of the New
York Times for her commitment to gourmet coffee? I don't know this
Madeleine, we never talked about these things.
My Madeleine was always "Madeleine", never "Maddy." She wanted to finish
at Widener, she wanted to write a high quality dissertation, she loved
being a psychoanalytic therapist, and she was especially interested in
working with the most difficult patients, including those for whom there
seemed to be very little hope. My Madeleine was intense, smart, funny,
somewhat vain about her looks, and a person who loved dogs. She was
never ever pretentious or fake and she was not at all afraid to speak
her mind. She is the only person I have ever known who called me
"lovie." She was my best new friend from the last decade. She entered
my life very quickly, very intensely, and now she is suddenly gone.
Masud Khan made a final comment about Winnicott: "He was one the likes of
whom I shall not see again." Madeleine too is one the likes of whom we
will not see again.