ABSTRACT
In The Years with Ross, James Thurber (1957/2001) describes Harold Ross, the founding editor of the New Yorker, as “a visionary and a practicalist, imperfect at both, a dreamer and a hard worker, a genius and a plodder, obstinate and reasonable … wide-eyed and world weary” (p. 8). Upon reflection, I suppose something similar could be said of Ghent, or that one could easily substitute Ghent for Ross in the above passage. Mannie was a complex person. An idealist and an iconoclast, compassionate but tough-minded, deadly serious about the analytic work but not without a sense of humor. Writing a portrait of one’s analyst is a tricky endeavor, and I’d like to start with a disclaimer. My goal here is not to go into details of my analysis with Mannie, nor is it to paint an idealized or overly sentimental view of him. Instead, I’d like to provide a descriptive snapshot of Mannie so that he may come to life for the reader of this volume. The following snapshot is only one person’s portrait of a man who touched the lives of many.
