Irene Fast

Irene Fast was one of my first supervisors in my graduate studies at The University of Michigan in the 1960s. We have been friends for nearly 55 years. She was a revolutionary thinker, a true Freud scholar who understood how to take Freud seriously, without at all taking him as anything other than a really brilliant thinker who had amazing insights and who could be amazingly wrong. In the authentic spirit of scholarship and science, real science, she had an ongoing conversation with him. Her...

Irene was an Admirable Woman. I am grateful to have gotten to know her a little bit personally; her academic stature and achievements I only admire from afar, having no experience of them. What an amazing person altogether! Deep condolences to all the family.

Prof Moshe Halevi Spero
Director, Postgraduate Program for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Bar-Ilan University
Israel

Such sad yet all but natural news to encounter this very day! Professor Irene Fast was a doctoral lecturer of mine in Ann Arbor and made a stunningly crisp demand on one's thinking process as she guided those in her seminar toward sharp and consistent thinking, as she sought certainty in the meanings of object-relational theoretical and clinical writings. I can still remember the sting of her comment, whilst trying a express a thought, "Mr Spero, try to express that again in your best prose!"...

Thank you for the wonderful obituary you placed in the NYT. I am a complete stranger, but you made me feel so hopeful about a world full of wonderful individuals I may never meet, but whose lives hold up the sky and enrich the earth beneath our feet. Your lengthy description of Dr. Fast was a gift to me and many others too.

As one of her students in the doctoral program at U. of Michigan in the mid 90s, I am grateful for her wisdom, support, and inspiration. May her family and friends be comforted.

Dr. Amorie Robinson
Clinical Psychologist