Yesterday and Today: Reflections on Clara Thompson's History of the White Institute

It has been 73 years since Clara Thompson told us how the William Alanson White Institute was conceived out of conflict, born in adversity, raised in poverty, and reared in the wilderness. The rebels, the mavericks, the outsiders, and, of course, the rejected of the psychoanalytic world found shelter and nourishment within this new community. The psychoanalytic establishment was first critical, then disdainful, and over time tried to ignore or deny its existence. The Institute thrived in isolation, carving a niche, spawning several generations of radical thinkers. Many of its insights seeped into the mainstream, eventually revolutionizing psychoanalytic practice and theory.† After seven decades of tentative contacts, moving forward and back, closer and away, the White community was invited to the establishment table, to become members of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Reluctant, skeptical, but flattered, willing to partner but unwilling to compromise its independence or integrity, the membership finally agreed to join in 2015.

What a pleasure to return to Clara Thompson's pithy description of our institutional and organizational roots. And to realize that in these many years not so much has changed. We are still essentially who we were. And I hope always will be: iconoclasts, experimenters, independent thinkers.

But all true believers in the value and the viability of the psychoanalytic enterprise.

I believe Clara would be proud. She was a pragmatist. She loved psychoanalysis and wanted it to grow and flourish. She was saddened by the divisive politics and small-mindedness of that ear