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THE COMMITEE ON PSYCHOANALYTIC EDUCATION'S Plenary Planning Group asked me to talk about future directions in psychoanalytic education as related to medicine and psychiatry. Though timely, this is a risky business, as is any forecasting. Everything seems to be in a state of transition, and no one knows where we will be 10 years from today. What we do recognize is that we cannot isolate ourselves from the tensions and currents of today's world; and yet, we must maintain what has proved valuable and valid in the past and in the present. Nevertheless, the voices of the past may not always be the voices of the present or of the future. The world changes, nor is psychoanalysis the same as it once was.
COPE, although contributing valuable information to psychoanalysis, is not an action committee. Its charge is to study and investigate various topics and areas, with no time limit, and it has taken as long as it has needed for its researches. In some instances the hope of COPE is to stimulate others to carry on needed studies; like St. Thomas Aquinas, COPE feels "It is not necessary that whosoever sees a mirror should see all that is in a mirror." Nonetheless we now have urgent needs, and we may not have time only for scholarly researches but may require, in addition, actionoriented investigations and action itself. In what will follow, I hope to pinpoint some current trends that require attention.
It was Samuel Johnson who said "The business of life is to go forward." An understanding of our evolution from the past gives