Development of the Educational Program

Almost exactly two years ago, in May, 1959, the American Psychoanalytic Association undertook to sponsor a program of long-range studies on psychoanalytic education. This decision was the outgrowth of a persistent need, of which the first organized expression was a plan for a Survey of Psychoanalytic Education. The necessity of a preliminary Survey had been recognized as early as 1947. After lying fallow for some years, this idea gained progressively in strength and conviction, until, in December, 1954, a Survey Committee was given the responsibility of developing plans for a Survey Project and seeking funds for its support.

More detailed plans were carried forward by a Survey Steering Committee under the able chairmanship of Dr. Joan Fleming. It organized the Preliminary Commissions, on which all our institutes were represented, for consideration of the various broad divisions of psychoanalytic education requiring study and investigation. They issued a series of papers, known as the Rainbow Report, which was submitted to all educational committees of institutes for comment. The year 1956 finally saw the materialization of a project for a Survey of Psychoanalytic Education, with Dr. Bertram Lewin and Miss Helen Ross as co-directors.

The end of the Survey Field Study was signalized by the writing of the book, Psychoanalytic Education in the U.S., under the joint authorship of the Survey directors. Thanks to their untiring efforts and their sensitive approach to the institutes, we had at our command a wealth of meticulously documented facts never before available. Many of these appear in the book, many more were arranged skillfully into important and almost encyclopedic files, which have been kept up to date.

As the Survey project drew to a close, the Association was confronted with what the next step should be. The Survey had never been considered a goal in itself, not an end point. It was essential that a bridge be created, one which could lead us from the kn