Access to Psychoanalytic Ideas in American Undergraduate Institutions

To determine the prevalence of teaching about psychoanalytic ideas in the undergraduate curricula of 150 highly ranked colleges and universities, a software-based search was conducted to find references to psychoanalytic content in published course catalogues. Results showed that psychoanalytic ideas were represented somewhere in the curricula of most (though not all) of these schools, and that overall there were many times more courses featuring psychoanalytic ideas outside psychology departments than within them. The data also suggest that there are regional differences in the likelihood an undergraduate will encounter psychoanalytic ideas at these schools. Though psychoanalytic ideas are available in some form in most of these schools' psychology departments, the average number of courses per school is small. At the same time, psychoanalytic ideas have found applications in many areas of the humanities and social sciences. The nature of the presentation of psychoanalytic ideas in these areas, however, may often be unfamiliar to clinically oriented analysts, as seen in examples of the courses that were found. Challenges and opportunities of the current academic climate vis-à-vis organized psychoanalysis are described and various suggestions made regarding how analysts can engage the academic world to its benefit.