With deep sadness we announce the passing of our colleague Alfred Dumitrescu (May 12, 1955 - February 10, 2022), psychologist, psychoanalyst, president (3 terms) of the Romanian Society of Psychoanalysis, member of the Ethics Commission and the Training Committee of our Society, an extraordinary clinician with a remarkable institutional and team spirit.
The psychoanalytic community has therefore lost a keystone of the Romanian psychoanalytic movement. He died exactly 32 years after the founding of the first post-1989 psychoanalytic institution, the Romanian Psychoanalytic Society (February 1990). Having been one of its founders, this "birth-death" coincidence is highly significant both in our field of psychoanalytic thinking and in that of the culture and historical space in which we exist and profess.
Alfred Dumitrescu had an unwavering devotion to psychoanalysis, to the profession of psychoanalyst and to the activities of the Romanian Society of Psychoanalysis, and his openness and participation in numerous events of the European Federation of Psychoanalysis and the International Psychoanalytic Association provided an opportunity to strengthen connection with the great psychoanalysis.
No doubt, when someone we know, close to us, passes away, we have a tendency to adjust our memories and representations of that person. Fredi is one of the remarkable people who has filled life with his presence long enough that these adjustments inherent in any evocation are not a necessity. Organically, he knew how to be and to offer a vectorial manifestation of consciousness, being constantly a man able to contain and coagulate the ideas and free movements of everyone.
In the register of the everyday human, interstitial to any role played, Fredi rose to the height of his humanity. This, we all know, is in the rara avis category. Each of us desires to succeed for oneself. We each feel deeply at such an inspiring "contamination."
We will deeply miss his inner strength, the support in every difficult human, collegial and institutional moment, his lively and healthy humour, the keen eye, his right words, his bright mind and thinking, his vitality, the ability to create connections, to transmit, to be where he was most needed, and many, many others for which he has made us grateful for over 30 years.
On behalf of the Executive Committee of the Romanian Society of Psychoanalysis