An Obituary for Félicie Affolter

Now she has arrived. Dr. Félicie Affolter, teacher, researcher, seeker, died on November 5, 2024, at the age of 98.

She was uncomfortable, restlessly researching, always getting to the bottom of things. She did not accept comfortable, quick answers. Imprecise observations or hasty interpretations were an abomination to her. On the other hand, she could be as happy as a child when she saw progress, whether in the children or adults treated according to her method, felt interaction therapy, or in the struggle for the precise formulation of a situation. „Splendid!“ was then her exclamation, and a radiance spread across her face, which even in old age was still full of life and curiosity.

As impatient as she could be, she was endlessly patient with the people to whom she had dedicated her lifelong work, people with perception problems. With statements like „he/she doesn't want to, isn't motivated...“, course participants could literally heap coals of fire on their heads. She persistently searched until the very end for the causes of difficulties in a specific situation. Not infrequently, this resulted in a new insight, which she incorporated into her legendary concluding lecture at the end of a course week.

„If I had had the stuff for it, I would have become a women's rights activist,“ she said in an interview in 2014. She would have had the stuff for it, but other things were more important to her than the fact that, as a woman of her generation, she repeatedly had to fight for recognition. Recognition as a scientist and recognition for her findings. This recognition was granted to her more abroad throughout her life. In 1994, Félicie Affolter was named „Person of the Year in Infant Studies“ by Michigan State University in East Lansing and simultaneously received an assignment for lectures and various seminars. In 2008, the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance (GPS Alliance) and the University of Minnesota Alumni Association (UMAA) honored her for her life's work with the „Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals.“.

More important to her than these honors, however, was always the fact that she was given the space and opportunity in the USA to further her research in the field of perception. She immediately incorporated the results of her quarterly research stays into her work in Switzerland and neighboring countries. Tirelessly, she traveled from one course location to another, training generations of professionals as therapists Affolter Model® Australia.

Over the years, this circle grew into a group of educators who further disseminated the model. As recently as April 2024, Félicie Affolter attended the APW meeting of these educators in Disentis, spending the day in professional discussion and re-
seeing many familiar people.

As she could no longer take these courses alone due to increasing age-related ailments with her long-time research partner
Although Dr. Walter Bischofberger could not deny it, she nevertheless worked behind the scenes, weaving the content threads spun by the instructors into a viable network at the end of a course week.

Even after Walter Bischofberger's death in 2020, she continued her research work, collaborating closely with other colleagues on new publications until her own death.

For many years, her home base for this work was the two institutions she founded in St. Gallen, the special school for children with perceptual disorders and the Center for Perceptual Disorders, now the wahrnehmung.ch Foundation. Here she had gathered a group of committed employees around her who supported her in her research, and here she found the opportunity to facilitate the learning she propagated in everyday life not only for the clients, but also for the staff. This resulted in the book „Perception, Reality and Language“ (Neckar-Verlag, 1987), which will probably always be associated with her name in professional circles. Dr. phil. habil. E. E. Kobi (Basel) wrote in his review: „A wonderful book in terms of content, layout, writing and presentation, which is entirely suited to bringing at least part of child psychology, which has long withered away in facts and statistics, back into everyday life and thus bringing it closer to (curative) education.“