The Analyst: A Daughter’s Memoir

Historian Wexler (The Woman Who Walked into the Sea) delivers a probing biography of her father, psychoanalyst Milton Wexler (1908–2007). Drawing on her memories, her father’s correspondence, and conversations with his colleagues, Wexler sets up her father as “a maverick” who “rejected notions of conformity and adjustment to the status quo.” In 1938, Wexler’s father left his law practice to pursue a career as a psychotherapist, studying at Columbia’s Teachers College under Freud disciple Theodor Reik. Wexler later practiced in Los Angeles during the 1950s and ’60s, where his clients included artist John Altoon and architect Frank Gehry. As well, Wexler offers a poignant study of how her family was haunted by Huntington’s disease, which killed her mother and provided a “grand purpose” in life for Milton, whose advocacy for researching Huntington’s bore fruit when scientists at the foundation he established isolated the gene that caused the disease. Wexler’s keen reflections make for a powerful portrait: “Growing up... my sister, Nancy, and I thought psychoanalysis was glamorous and exciting even if psychoanalysts, with a few exceptions, were not. We thought our father was one of those exceptions.” Readers interested in the history of psychoanalysis will want to check this out. (Oct.)