Bernie

[Paolo MIGONE]

Dear RKSG members,

with great sorrow, we learned that Bernie Maskit died. We are very close to Wilma for this very painful loss.

I copy below a beautify email that five of his collaborators and friends just sent to the Psychodynamic Listserv.

Paolo

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Dear Friends and Colleagues:

 

It is with great sorrow that we note that on Friday, March 15, 2024, our dear friend and colleague, Bernard Maskit, passed away at Mt. Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan at the age of 88. Bernie, despite his accomplishments, was such a friendly and modest person.

 

He was a Professor of Mathematics at Stony Brook University where he guided generations of students.  He was well known in the field, particularly for the “Maskit slice through the modulii space of Kleinian Groups and the Klein-Maskit combination theorem.” He received his PhD from NYU, was a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, then at MIT, before coming to Stony Brook where he taught, from 1972 until his retirement in 2008. In 2012, he became one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society.

 

In the late 1990s, he began to collaborate with his wife, partner, and professional colleague, Wilma Bucci. To those of us who worked closely with them, our minds were always on “Wilma and Bernie” or “Bernie and Wilma.” In the early 2000s, they both became intrinsically involved with the Pacella Research Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI), whose focus has been to integrate an empirical research perspective with its excellence in clinical psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Bernie’s contribution to our work goes far beyond his official title as chair of the NYPSI IRB.

 

Bernie’s mathematical and programming expertise enabled an exponential leap in the understanding and utilization of Multiple Code Theory (MCT) and the Referential Process (RP). This allowed for the further development of sophisticated methods to empirically evaluate narratives, including psychotherapy and psychoanalytic sessions.

 

Bernie was instrumental in guiding the work of many graduate analysts and students, including mentoring dissertations, papers, and posters. Traditionally, the evaluation of the transcriptions of recorded psychotherapy and psychoanalytic sessions has been based on the words and sounds uttered by both patient and analyst without consideration of pauses and silences. Bernie’s most recent work involved the creation of a program which allows for the evaluation of the various language measures along a time axis (rather than just considering the word and sound order).

 

While Bernie was in the hospital, prior to his death, he kept telling Wilma that he was eager to go home so he could complete the program.  Unfortunately, death interrupted this plan. We hope that we can complete Bernie’s final contribution. In addition to the work at the Pacella Research Center, Bernie’s and Wilma’s work has been influential nationally and internationally. Some international centers utilizing the principles of the Referential Process include Bergamo and Rome, Italy, Israel, and Argentina.

 

He is survived by his wife: Wilma Bucci, Children: Sidney Maskit, Professor Jonathan Maskit, Daniel Maskit, Jocelyn James, Michael Bucci; Grandchildren: Adrian Fultner-Maskit, Kyle Van Belle, Hanna Van Belle, Marisol Bucci, Nicolas Shoop-Cohen, Celeste Shoop-Cohen, Evelyn Condo-Cohen 

 

We will all dearly miss him.

A memorial will be held in the near future.

 

Christopher Christian

Leon Hoffman

Rachele Mariani

Sean Murphy

Attá Negri

 

As representatives of many colleagues