Hartmann, Ernest L.

Dates

• Existence: 1934 -- 2013 - 2013

Biography

Abstract:

Ernest L. Hartmann (1934-2013), was an internationally renowned psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and faculty member at Tufts School of Medicine for 49 years. Part of a prominent Austrian family of Jewish heritage that eventually settled in New England, he was a pioneer and authority in sleep and dream studies, incorporating neurophysiology, endocrinology, and biochemistry. He linked clinical with non-clinical practices and introduced numerous new paradigms and theories to the field.

Ernest (Ernst) Louis Hartmann was born in Vienna, Austria, on February 25, 1934. He was the elder of two sons born to Dora Karplus Hartmann and Heinz Hartmann; their younger son, Lawrence (Lorenz) Hartmann, also went on to become a distinguished psychiatrist.

Heinz Hartmann was a prominent psychoanalyst, a favorite student and collaborator of Sigmund Freud. Dora Karplus Hartmann was a pediatrician, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and mountaineer. The family emigrated from Austria in 1938 due to the rise of Nazism, first to France and Switzerland, then to New York City in 1941. There, Ernest Hartmann attended the Fieldston School, the University of Chicago (from which he graduated in 1952 after only one year of study), and Yale University School of Medicine, where he received his M.D. in 1958. His career at Tufts Medical School began as assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, 1964-1966, then assistant professor of psychiatry, 1966-1969, until Hartmann became a full professor in 1975, one of only three full professors at the School of Medicine at the time. He held the position until he retired from Tufts in 2013.

During a 55-year career as a researcher into sleep and dreams, he published more than 350 articles and 9 books and gave innumerable presentations and talks across the globe. He was the former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and the first editor-in-chief of its journal, Dreaming, which he helped launch. He held multiple high-level positions concurrent with his duties at Tufts, directing the Sleep and Dream Laboratory at the Boston State Hospital from 1964-1980, the Sleep Laboratory at the West-Ros-Park Mental Health Center, and the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, for instance. He served as a lieutenant commander in the US Public Health Service from 1962-1964. Hartmann’s interests were varied. He published as a poet and wrote articles on abortion and the effects of advertising.

Hartmann married twice, first from 1961-1974 to Barbara Snow Hengst, and again to Eva Neumann from 1995-1999. Both marriages ended in divorce. He had two children from his first marriage, Jonathan and Katherine Hartmann. He died on August 7, 2013, in Truro, MA.

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