<Caltech Mourns the Passing of professor Louis Breger>

 

 

Caltech Mourns the Passing of professor Louis Breger (1935–2020) July 01, 2020

He was 84 years old. Breger joined Caltech in 1970 and retired in 1994. His research centered on dreams

 reformulations of psychoanalytic theory, psychotherapy process and outcome, personality development,

and therefore the application of psychoanalysis to literature. His books include two biographies of Freud .

His research on dreams used techniques to watch people's sleep throughout the night and showed that

dreams are symbolic attempts to master emotional conflicts instead of wish fulfillments as Freud

proposed. "Lou Breger was one among a sort , a uniquely talented, multi-disciplinary scholar capable of

publishing significant add diverse fields—social science, psychoanalytic theory, biography, and literary

studies," says Robert Rosenstone, professor of history, emeritus, at Caltech.

 

When, on several occasions, we co-taught classes, i used to be dazzled by the breadth of his knowledge

and his ability to bring back life for college kids what are often considered difficult concepts and concepts

." Breger was born in l. a. and grew up within the city. He received his baccalaureate from UCLA in 1957

and his PhD from Ohio State University in 1961. Before joining Caltech in 1970, he taught at UC

Berkeley, the University of California school of medicine in San Francisco , and therefore the University of

Oregon. Breger was also a practicing psychotherapist. He graduated from the Southern California

Psychoanalytic Institute in 1979, where he became a training and supervising analyst. While there, he

received the Franz Alexander Essay Award and therefore the Distinguished Teaching Award. In 1990, he

created the Institute of up to date Psychoanalysis (ICP) with colleagues, and served because the

founding president from 1990 to 1993. The ICP may be a non-hierarchical training institute and reflects

Breger's commitment to open and democratic education. He is survived by his three adult children and

eight grandchildren.