Obituary: AGAP Member René Malamud, 1929-2015
Dr. phil. René Malamud was born in 1929 in Germany, in the Rhineland city of Essen. His father was an electrical engineer who in 1933 moved with his family to Switzerland, settling first in Geneva and then in Zürich. René Malamud studied business for two years in St. Gallen before taking degrees in psychology at the University of Zürich where he wrote his Ph. D. dissertation on “The Psychology of German Pop Songs.”
René Malamud completed his training at the Jung Institute in Zürich in 1966. The subject of his diploma thesis was Euripides’ play, Hyppolitus, a play which addresses the conflict between the Goddess Aphrodite and Artemis, and which René Malamud related to the problems of modern feminine psychology.
René Malamud led a quiet and reflective life. He was a highly esteemed Jungian analyst who worked in private practice. He lived in Zürich-Witikon with his wife and two daughters, but he also spent a great deal of time walking in the Münstertal in southern Switzerland, where over forty years ago he bought and renovated a wonderful old house.
René Malamud was fortunate to work with Marie-Louise von Franz for over forty years, with whom he also had a very close personal relationship. In 1974, he and his friends established the Stiftung für Jung’sche Psychologie, which since Marie-Louise von Franz’s death in 1998 has administered both the von Franz and Barbara Hannah literary estates.
Right up to his passing, René Malamud continued to study and write about Jung and analytical psychology. He had a very broad and far-reaching knowledge, which he shared with only a very few. Of central importance to him was the relationship to the inner life; the works of C. G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz; his work with analysands; and our relationships with human beings in general.
René Malamud will be especially missed for his kindness, his generosity, his breadth of vision, and his calm composure.
Submitted by Judith Harris Zürich, November 1, 2015