In memory of

Ingeborg Rücker-Embden-Jonasch

July 5, 1942—November 19, 2000

by Norbert A. Wetzel, Princeton

"AFTA member Ingeborg Rücker-Embden-Jonasch, Heidelberg, died after a long battle with cancer on November 19, 2000." With these few words printed in the last issue, Volker Thomas, our Newsletter editor, matter-of-factly announced the passing of a colleague. It is hard for me to convey to AFTA members in the US Ingeborg's importance to the development of family therapy in the German-speaking world. It is harder still to communicate to colleagues who did not know her, how her death affected a large circle of friends and colleagues in Germany and beyond. Yet, as her friend, who was connected with crucial times in her life, during the beginnings of family therapy in Heidelberg and at her death and memorial last November, I cannot escape the responsibility I feel for commemorating her. So, AFTA newsletter readers, I hope those of you who knew and loved her will remember with me, and those who did not know Ingeborg, will bear with me, as I highlight some aspects of Ingeborg's life and death.

I have to start with Ingeborg's death. As I write, again, about her death, the intense anger and sadness that I felt while participating in her funeral comes back to me. It seemed so unfair that she had to leave her children (Philip, Isabel, Robin) and her husband Klaus Jonasch, as well as the community of friends, colleagues, and clients that reached across the continents. But Ingeborg died in peace with herself and her fate. Ingeborg had mastered the ancient "ars moriendi"; her death appeared to all of us to be as much the final, well prepared act of a life devoted to others as it was the end of a long devastating disease that finally overwhelmed her.

Yes, she, too, protested against her death—a death that announced itself almost two years before she completed her life—but she did not linger in a state of anger while she (and Klaus) explored all avenues of a possible cure. Hardly interrupted by courses of painful chemotherapy treatments, she began to celebrate her life with others, with family, friends, colleagues, clients, strangers. She intensified what she had practiced before: She traveled (one extended trip took her to the friends and places of her youth in the United States and Canada, only a few months before her death). She organized more of those legendary parties for the varied circles of friends—parties full of good food and wonderful stories. And she opened the doors of her residence even wider to people who came to her because they felt well "chez Ingeborg," being in her home. Time and time again, people have told me about her last birthday party in July 2000, and about the transformation that radiated from her face, and how it deeply affected everybody who saw her. She planned and orchestrated the memorial service after her death, including the speakers and material for a eulogy. Ingeborg faced her death with remarkable courage and hope.

What was it about her life that touched so many people? As a member of her generation, I need to point out something not always understood by people in this country. Ingeborg's life, like that of many German contemporaries, was determined by the legacy of World War II and the Holocaust. Born in 1942, literally in a "lunatic asylum," just as the Nazi murder machine spiraled toward its apocalyptic climax, she was the daughter of a psychiatrist who refused to become a member of the Nazi party. The mentally ill were, of course, one of the groups used by the Nazis to rehearse the genocide of the Jews. Ingeborg always remembered that history. You could see it in the way she welcomed people and empathically understood what they were all about.

Perhaps one way to speak about Ingeborg's life is to say, she was vulnerable. She was, of course, hurt by the devastating effects of the cancer that ultimately took her life. More significantly, however, her vulnerability showed itself in her encounters with others. Her creativity in connecting with people, the ability she had for accepting others and making them feel at home with her, the healing power of these empathic connections—all of these qualities had roots in a personal vulnerability that she did not hide behind an armor of distance or rigidity. Ingeborg's vulnerability also fed her talent for exact observation, her sharp wit, and a sense of irony that did not exclude herself.

In 1974, Ingeborg Rücker-Embden joined Helm Stierlin's first team of family therapists at the Heidelberg Medical School. From that time on, she played a decisive role in the evolution of systemic couples and family therapy in the German-speaking countries of Europe. The colleagues who received their family therapy training from Ingeborg must count into the hundreds. I had the privilege of joining her in her early research of the role of empathy in the effectiveness of family therapy. Is it an accident that empathy was also the focus of the philosophical work of Husserl disciple Edith Stein, who died of starvation at Bergen-Belsen?

Anyway, in these early days the important voices in German family therapy were male. Ingeborg's personality and work changed that. Just as she bridged the Atlantic and always retained her connection with friends on the North American continent, she was able to bridge the gender worlds. Ingeborg initiated a gender-oriented perspective in the German family therapy field that enabled her and her female colleagues to construct a feminist theory and practice of family therapy that constitutes a unique contribution to the field. Her book (with A. Ebbecke-Nohlen), Balanceakte. Familientherapie und Geschlechterrollen (Balancing Acts. Family Therapy and Gender Roles) was published in a revised and enlarged second edition shortly before her death (Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme, 2000).

Ingeborg's husband, Klaus, and their children, experience the loss of her daily presence most intensely, of course. For all of us, her friends and partners in the journey, the loss can be made tolerable by doing what she liked so much: Telling stories about her and about our experiences with her. That way we can remember her. And for those of you who had the joy of visiting her home in Heidelberg, keep going there, and bring your stories with you. Her family will appreciate your kindness as they carry on in the spirit of Ingeborg's hospitality, honoring the warmth and openness that transformed so many people's lives.

AFTA member Norbert A. Wetzel is co-founder (with Hinda Winawer) and director of the Center for Family, Community, and Social Justice, Inc. at Princeton Family Institute. He was part of Helm Stierlin's Heidelberg Family Institute from 1976 —1977.