ABSTRACT
Sidney Blatt was a mentor to me in many different ways. When I arrived at Yale as a young ®rst year graduate student, I was more in need of a mentor than I realized. Still quite naive, and relatively unfamiliar with the ®eld of psychology after having majored in physics as an undergraduate, I was far from ready for prime time. But I had the extraordinary stroke of luck of being assigned to Sid as a research assistant in connection with my National Institute of Mental Health fellowship. For a young student who did not yet even know about the tensions so prevalent in our ®eld between hard-headed research and sensitive, intuitive clinical engagement, being assigned to Sid was a blessing. Sid was, and is, one of the rare individuals in our ®eld who stands out in both realms, and having the opportunity to work so closely with him at the start of my graduate school career helped me not to have to choose between the two sides of my own nature either.
