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The underlying motivations that propel someone to become an analyst are multi- determined. Uncovering these motivations may shed light on the renewed interest in transporting basic psychoanalytic premises onto new frontiers. Curiosity about the inner spaces, the fascination with the choreography of the internal and the external, psychic life and material reality, the longing to master the impetus of unrelenting monsters — are just a few items in an extensive list of motives. One may question whether those that attempt to bring psychoanalysis to the public arena are attempting to enter into a territory usually reserved for other disciplines. I am suggesting that psychoanalysts that “take the couch out onto the streets” are willing to face not just the customary psychic pain of the couch variety, but also the crude (from Latin bloody flesh) pain that steams from externally generated terror where bloody cruelty overlaps with psychic cruelty.
Over 18 years have passed since the American Psychiatric Association (APA), Division of Psychoanalysis (39) published and distributed free to all its members the proceeding of an historic conference. This was the record of the 1986 Clark Conference on Psychoanalytic Training for Psychologists.
The book's title is “Tradition and innovation in psychoanalytic education” edited by Murray Meisels and Ester R. Shapiro (1990). Thirty-six sections cover almost all aspects of psychoanalytic education ranging from models of training to the psychologist-psychoanalyst professional identity, from the future of our profession to intergenerational conflicts and the balance of tradition and innovation.
Reading the book's table of content one cannot fail to notice the omission of applied psychoanalysis. Indeed, no reference to this step-child of psychoanalysis was put on the table for discussion. Section 19 is devoted to “Becoming a Psychoanalyst of One Persuasion or Another.” The only two papers in this