Events in the Psychoanalytic World

Dr. Maurice Levine, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, has written to us of the extensive role that psychoanalysis plays in his department. The director as well as the associate director are members of the Association. The former is also a training analyst. The director of the division of child psychiatry is analytically trained. There are many other associate, as well as assistant professors who are either analysts or in analytic training. The impact of psychoanalysis has made itself felt in other fields as well. The associate professor of experimental medicine in the department is in analytic training and the director of the department of neurology has had a training analysis and a large part of the systematic training.

It is quite evident therefore that the dominant orientation of the department is analytic. This emphasis is not a back door affair. The use of analytic facts and ideas dominate the training given to psychiatrists and medical students. Of course, the nature of the material makes emphasis on organic problems and on general clinical psychiatry an integral part of training but the dominant emphasis is on psychodynamics and psychotherapy.

Fifteen residents and fellows are in psychiatric training. Each week they have an individual hour of supervision, two group supervised sessions, seminars on psychodynamics, psychotherapy, and psychosomatic problems, as well as ward rounds, neurologic conferences, training in neuropathology, etc. In brief, the training program of the psychiatrist is modelled after that of a psychoanalytic institute. Psychiatrists trained in this program are not regarded as psychoanalysts, unless they are concomitantly trained as analysts.

Medical students are introduced to psychoanalytic ideas in their first year of medical school, and courses are given in all four years. In this teaching, special emphasis is placed on material that is usable, with safety, by those who are not psychiatrists or ps