Rudolf Ekstein, 93; Psychoanalyst Who Treated Emotionally Disturbed Children

Rudolf Ekstein, a Viennese-trained psychoanalyst who became a fixture at Los Angeles’ Reiss-Davis Child Study Center and was a well-known expert in treating emotionally disturbed children, has died. He was 93.

Ekstein died Friday in Los Angeles of natural causes, according to his friend and colleague, Dr. Rocko L. Motto.

An educator as well as an analyst, Ekstein wrote several books, including “Children of Time and Space, of Action and Impulse,” published in 1966, and, with others, a study of the psychoanalytic treatment of severely disturbed children in 1971.

He also edited a history of the local Reiss-Davis center in 1976.

Ekstein made recorded books, including one on developing a teacher’s professional identity in 1969 and “Speaking of the Truth Behind Fairy Tales” in 1974.

Born Feb. 9, 1912, in Vienna, Ekstein earned a doctorate in psychoanalysis at the University of Vienna.

But he fled his native city in 1938 after Hitler invaded Austria, and made his way first to London and then to the United States.

He earned a master’s degree at Boston University and became a U.S. citizen in 1942.

Ekstein taught at what is now City College in New York and then worked for the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kan., as a training analyst for a decade before moving to Los Angeles in 1957.

As Motto’s coordinator of training and research at Reiss-Davis, he directed its childhood psychosis project.

He also coordinated findings of a three-person team -- psychiatrist, psychologist and social worker -- that evaluated and prescribed treatment for each child brought to the clinic for treatment.

“In Los Angeles we have at the most 10 teams of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers. We need 50 to 100 such teams,” he told The Times in 1961, discussing how the clinic attempted to deal with the large numbers of referrals from schools, family doctors and parents.

After more than a decade with the clinic, Ekstein left to teach medical psychology at UCLA.

Ekstein, who had served as president of the Topeka Institute of Psychoanalysis during his Menninger Foundation work, was active for several years in the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute and in the 1970s in the Southern California Psychoanalytical Institute.

A friend and colleague of the late, better-known child therapist, Bruno Bettelheim, Ekstein joined him Jan. 10, 1990, in videotaping a conversation about their half-century in psychoanalysis and their native Vienna.

“We always had a wonderful time together. I treasure every hour,” Ekstein told Newsday shortly after Bettelheim committed suicide March 13, 1990. “Neither of us was a ‘yes’ man. If you have a friend who always agrees, for what do you have the friendship?”

Ekstein was married in 1942 to Ruth Michal, who survives along with their two children, Jean Elizabeth and Rudolf Michal Ekstein.

A memorial service was pending, Motto said.