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It has been a source of continuing concern to psychoanalysts that their field of interest, endeavor, and dedication has been beset by both internal and external confusion and opposition. It was a tragic consequence that much basic theory became encrusted in dogma, ritual, and organizational cement, so that change and evolution became not only difficult, but threatening, and eventually forbidden. As in the history of so many organizations of human beings, lip service to ideas and ideals became the manifest rationale for the perpetuation of the antithetical administering hierarchy. It has been said that Freud himself would probably not be a “Freudian” if he were alive today.
While the major influence in psychoanalysis continues to be wielded through the American Psychoanalytic Association, theory, therapy and research have been evolved and developed from other than Freudian psychoanalytic schools and through the collaboration of other disciplines. In an effort to provide cross communication and fertilization among all sciences of human behavior, a forum was initiated. Since 1956, The Academy of Psychoanalysis, has carried out its prime purposes of “developing communication among psychoanalysts and their colleagues in other disciplines in science and the humanities; providing a forum for inquiry into the phenomena of individual motivation and social behavior; encouraging research and fostering the acceptance of psychoanalysis and its integration in universities.”
The present volume represents a selection of papers presented at the 1956 and 1957 meetings. Some depict the evolution of psychoanalysis, biologically and historically, and in its relationship to related areas of knowledge. Others detail some of the current difficulties in communication among the various practitioners of the behavioral disciplines