The original invitation I received was to present a political history of the NYPSI institute. After some thought I decided that the political history should be a personal history since politics involves personal relationships and personal relationships are affected by politics.
I also thought I would place my presentation in the context of my personal relationship to psychoanalysis, which goes back some ways. I remember, as a five-year-old, reading in the Yiddish Forward an article about the death of Freud. That was November 1939. At fourteen, I read Freud's Introductory Lectures, the yellow and red paperback edition. After graduating from the University of Chicago, I decided to go to medical school to become a psychiatrist and then to train as a psychoanalyst. Although I did have second thoughts along the way during medical school, where I became interested in the subject matter of each course, and during my medical school clerkship in medicine pathology and neuroanatomy.
I had a summer internship at The Public Health Service Marine Hospital Psychiatry Service with Larry Deutch, an analytic candidate at Downstate, and Steve Firestein, an analytic candidate at Columbia. Larry was in analysis with Melita Sperline and was infected with analytic zeal. Analysis, Larry thought, could cure everything, including ulcerative colitis. The faculty and other candidates (Sam Abrams, Len Shengold, Shelly Orgel, Austin Silber, and Roy Liliskov) were very involved in my psychiatry clerkship, where we were exposed to psychoanalytic ideas. After graduating from medical school, I interned at the Public Health Service in Baltimore. Though many of my friends and classmates opted for the psychiatric residency at Albert Einstein, with its close connection to the NYPSI, I decided, primarily for financial reasons, to go to the Menninger Foundation in Topeka Kansas.
Menninger had a strong psychoanalytic tradition—David Rappaport, Robert Knight, Roy Shafer, Merton Gil, and a psychoanalytic presence
in Wallerstein, the Tichos, Tibout Eckstein, Van Der Valls, et al. The tone was set by Karl Menninger's anti-nosological approach (Love against Hate and The Vital Balance). We also benefited from the connection with the Sloan Visiting Professors, Aldus Huxley, Konrad Lorenz, Ludwig Van Bertanolfy, Margaret Mead, et al. At Topeka, where I was paid as a Public Health Service officer, the financial arrangement was much better than anything I might have had in the Bronx. In return I had to serve two years in the prison service. I also was the Chief Psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer at the Federal Penitentiary in Petersburg, Virginia during the civil rights movement, the March on Washington, the Cuban Missile crisis, and the JFK assassination: it was the early Sixties.
While at Menninger, I applied to the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute and two institutes in New York: Columbia and NYPSI. I did not apply to Downstate. Having grown up in Brooklyn, I decided I could not go home again. I think I decided where to go on the basis of geography—New York rather than DC—and the interview experience. The interview at DC was with four interviewers in the same room—Edith Weigart, Dan Jaffe, Harold Searles and Doug Noble. Searles offered the interpretation that I was working at a prison because my childhood had been a prison. I suppose this was his idea of a deep interpretation. I had three interviewers at Columbia, which were, I thought, rather perfunctory: one with George Goldman, one with Linek Ovesay and a third with someone whose name escapes me.
At New York I had three interviews. One with Barnard Fine, who I believe was a recently appointed Training Analyst. The second interview was with Andrew Peto. I told Peto that, in a dream I had had the night before, someone said “That's fine”—a play on words, although I don't recall having heard those words before the dream, which contradicts Isakower's idea that spoken words in dreams are always words heard recently in waking life. The third interviewer was Lilly Bussell, a child analyst, who at the end of the interview said, “Now I understand your case,” which I think meant she decided I was analyzable and would be admitted. 1969, when I graduated, may have been the high-water mark for psychoanalysis in the US, and the beginning of a downward trajectory.
At the time, it was generally agreed that NYPI was the premier psychoanalytic institute in the US. The New York Psychoanalytic Society was
founded by A.A. Brill in 1911. The New York Psychoanalytic Institute was founded in 1932. I was very fortunate in the teachers I had. Among my teachers were Robert Bok, Nicholas Young, Edith Jacobson, Phyllis Greenacre, Margaret Mahler, Ruth Eissler, Charles Brenner, Jack Arlow, and Nick Young. My supervisors were David Beres, Ted Lipin, and George Gero, each with their own approach. Beres was an ego psychologist, Lipin followed the Paul Gray ‘close process monitoring’ approach, Gero, and the topographic model.
Above all, I was fortunate that each of my cases responded to the approach that was offered. I graduated in June 1969, when I finished four years of classes—not the norm, but it did happen. Looking back on my class of 13, two dropped out. I think eight graduated. Three have since died. Three are still practicing psychoanalysis. As a group we were less rather than more questioning, we sat at the feet of the masters. I finished my analysis when I graduated, after five years at four times a week. Four years of class, three cases, that was the sum total of my formal analytic training experience. But my informal experience, through my connections with colleagues and teachers, some of which continue to this day, has been much more extensive.
Now I would like to consider the political history of the NYPI before I arrived, while I was in training, and subsequently. I graduated in 1969, became certified in 1972, and a Training Analyst in 1984. I have written that the shadow of the founder falls over an institute. NYPSI's founder was A.A. Brill and his shadow included the politics of exclusion, his disagreement with Freud about lay analysis—Freud for and Brill against—and the medical identity of both NYPSI and APsaA.
My sense is that there were very few dissenting voices concerning the issue of lay analysis when I trained, and up till the settlement of the law suit in 1985. Though my wife is a psychologist, until the mid 80s I sided with The Powers That Be in supporting the medical requirement. Almost everyone I knew did as well. But their support of the medical requirement did not prevent some of the members of the NYPSI faculty from teaching psychologists and social workers.
Exclusion extended to theory as well as discipline. I think that there was more openness to unorthodox Freudian views in the thirties than there
was after the Eitigon Europeans came. The rescue of the analysts from Europe mounted by Larry Kubie and Bettina Warberg was an important achievement. There was some resistance initially, a fear of competition perhaps. When William Langer approached Burt Lewin about the rescue he was luke-warm, saying “Don't we have enough analysts?” But Kubie, who became President of NYPS after Lewin, recognized the extreme danger and the dire circumstances of the Jewish analysts in Europe and was able to marshal the resources of the community, obtaining visas, raising funds, and finding positions in New York and elsewhere.
The émigrés came and conquered. Replacing the American-born psychoanalysts (Kubie, Brill, et al.), they became the ruling class. Their advantage was their closeness to Freud. I believe they brought with them a rigidity in theory and practice. Some feel that the image of the silent analyst developed in part because the émigrés had difficulty with English, so for them, saying less was more comfortable.
Phyllis Greenacre, Ruth Loveland, and Martin Stein, who were some of the most important American-born psychoanalysts in New York, allied themselves consistently with the Europeans who were in charge: Ruth Eissler, Robert Bak, Nick Young, and Lillian Malcove. Edith Jacobson was not very political. Many Furer, American-born, had political standing in the 70s and 80s, chaired the EC and represented NYPI in BoPS. An interesting figure was Otto Isakower, whose work on the Isakower phenomenon and the auditory sphere was highly regarded. He wrote 29 papers and became a phenomenon. During his reign, no Training Analysts were appointed. This became known as the other Isakower phenomenon. He was chair of the EC with seven women. Someone once asked him, “Tell me, what was it like to be chair of the EC with seven women?” Otto, who was short, replied, “Seven snow whites and one dwarf.”
I realize that I have not included the three most important émigrés, Hartman, Kris, and Lowenstein. They certainly supported the political side of the émigrés but I think their interests were more in theory than in politics and administration. The political structure of the Institute involved three committees. The Educational Committee was the power center. The Instructors Advisory Commit nominated people for the Educational Committee. The Instructors Executive Committee
nominated people for Training Analyst positions, which were then approved by EC.
All these members, of course, had to be Training Analysts. I believe they were voted on by all the members but nominated by a Committee of Training Analysts, and no nominations were allowed from the floor. This all came to a head when a member of the out-group, Herbert Waldorn was turned down by the Training Analyst committee. At this point, the out-group introduced the Brenner Amendment to allow for a more open process. The Amendment required a 2/3 vote to pass and fell one vote short.
Where did I fall in all this with the political currents—the in-group and the out-group? I started as a member of the in-group. I was invited to a seminar in Ruth Eissler's living room, where aspiring young members were vetted by Ruth and her acolytes to determine whether they could become Training Analysts. I remember these meetings well. The older members, including Mauri Edelman Irwin Solomon, and the middle group, including George Gross and Bill Grossman. I remember a meeting in which Ruth announced that George and Bill would become Training analysts. The problem was that they were not certified, they were not members of the American. But that would not be a problem because a member of the group, Irwin Solomon, was also the head of the APsaA certification/membership committee, so it was expected that they would easily pass muster with his committee. Irwin Solomon's wife was Rebecca Solomon. There was somewhat of a bruhaha when she was appointed Training Analyst, as there was when Mimi Young, Nick Young's wife, was appointed. There were complaints of nepotism but these came to nothing. Although Ernst Kris was not very political, his wife Marian, who was close to Ruth Eissler, was.
A consideration of the Brenner Amendment requires going into more detail on the situation and activities of the members of the out-group who supported both Brenner and his amendment. In effect, the supporters of the Brenner Amendment were the out-group at the NYPS. They were rarely nominated to the EC and, when nominated, almost never elected. The in-group had a tight hold on the electoral process. I know because I was a part of it. They would decide who should be elected to the Educational Committee and the Instructors Advisory and Instructors
Executive Committee, and they organized a telephone tree to make sure that their group voted for the right people. I think the Board of Trustees and Board of Directors were a separate matter and didn't require the same election effort because the power was in the EC and Instructor's Committees and not in the boards.
When I tell people that as far as I recall neither Jack Arlow nor Charlie Brenner was ever elected to the EC, I am met with disbelief. Both Jack and Charlie, but especially Jack, had problems with the institute curriculum. Jack thought it was not up-to-date, that too much Freud was taught. Jack asked or was asked to prepare a report outlining a new contemporary curriculum, which he did. He submitted it to the EC. It was rejected. Jack was not pleased. He decreased his involvement in NYPI and taught more at Columbia and Downstate. Charlie, on the other hand, connected with the younger members and eventually had more influence at the institute, although his political clout was still limited. His influence also increased as some of the émigré analysts passed on.
But to tell the in-group/out-group, American/European story adequately, we need to turn the clock back to when Jack and Charlie first became members of the NYPSI. After they graduated, Jack, Charlie, David Beres, and Martin Wang (Wang was a European aligned with the Americas) met with Heinz Hartmann to discuss psychoanalytic theory. I think this sharpened their areas of agreement and disagreement. The latter included the conflict force sphere. For them conflict was central hence their development of Contemporary Conflict Theory. They did not have a central place for ego deficit, and had less interest in child observation and child analysis than HKL had. They all agreed that the topographic model was superseded by the structural model. Arlow and Brenner presented the case for the shift to the structural model in their book. I am not sure how they viewed the economic model which was important to Hartmann with his emphasis on neutralization and deneutralization, and libidinization and aggression, and cathexis and decathexis. But I think they found Hartmann's emphasis on the self rather than the ego, that is the self image, useful.
Returning to the Brenner Amendment, I will list some of the amendment's supporters who made up the out-group. In addition to Jack and Charlie there were Victor Rosen, David Beres, Eleanor Galenson, Milton
Jucovy, Buddy Meyers, Larry Roose, Phil Wiesmn and Arthur Root. Some of them shared a far left political outlook and had been were members pf the CPUSA—including Jack, Charlie, Eleanor Galenson, Milton Jucovy or fellow travelers Victor Rosen, Larry Roose, Buddy Meyers, and perhaps David Beres. I have not been able to decide about Leo Stone, who for the most part kept above the political fray but one of his analysands told me that he had copies of The Nation in his waiting room so that suggests left leaning. Eleanor Galenson was a part of the CPUSA during her residency at NYU in the forties. Nat Ross was connected with them. Bluma Swerlow and Stella Chess also belonged. Jack remained in the party until 1953, after the Duclos letter opposing Browder letter, which is quite remarkable. He wife Alice was also a member.
I do not know how the political affiliations of the out-group impacted on their situation in NYPSI. The in-group émigrés included some Austro-Marxists and all were, I am sure, anti-Communists. But I do believe that the left politics of many members of the out-group was a basis for solidarity. Some lived on the Upper West Side and sent their children to the Little Red and Elizabeth Irwin. But as far as their politics, this was not very public outside of the group. Charlie did write a letter to the New York Times about the Vietnam war which upset Phyllis Greenacre. She said that it would destroy the transference if patients were aware of the political views of their analysts. But in the group, Charlie, Buddy Mayer, and some others did come out of their political closet when they raised money for a full page ad in the New York Times against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which had more than 100 signers.
The out-group, unable to crack the power structure at NYPSI, shifted their involvement from NYPI to APsaA, where, one after the other, Brenner, Arlow, Beres, Calder and Rosen became Presidents. The in-group, on the other hand, had very little interest in, and very little use for, APsaA outside their involvement with BoPS.
As I indicated earlier, my thesis is that personal relationships determine politics and are affected by politics. The up and down, first in and then out, saga in the history of my status at the NYPSI illustrates this thesis. I graduated in 1969, after five years as a candidate. I graduated as soon as I finished classes with three cases in analysis. I think my relatively early, and below average time to, graduation is indicative of the high regard
that I was held in by my supervisors and instructors. I had very good relationships with most of the faculty and with most of the members. I identified and was accepted by the in-group with their commitment to orthodox Freudian theory and technique. At the time, I was not aware that there was an out-group which was led by Arlow and Brenner who were less “Freudian” and had a problem with the system of Training Analyst appointment and the control of the Executive Committee and curriculum by the in-group. I was not aware of the issues which divided the in-group and the out-group until the Brenner Amendment which challenged the political power status quo.
Jack Arlow was my wife's analyst. And Arlene and I and several other colleagues often had lunch with Charlie every Monday at the Madison Delicatessen, a ritual which continued for many years. I was close to Charlie and Jack but closer to some of the faculty from “the other side.” My professional standing at the NYPSI advanced in the years following my graduation. I was appointed Secretary of the Society and Chair of the Program Committee. It was in Ruth Eissler's “perversion” seminar that I first became aware of the in-group/out-group divide because Ruth and others routinely bad-mouthed Jack Arlow and Charlie Brenner, who they referred to, pejoratively, as political. It is a fact that the Arlow/Brenner out-group were excluded from the Educational Committee and the ruling group. The in-group would decide on the slate from their side, who they wanted to be elected. They organized ‘telephone trees’ to assure the outcome. I was aware of all this because I was told to make phone calls to let the members know who to vote for.
The political battle between the AB2C group, Arlow, Brenner, Beres, and Calder became very visible, public, and acrimonious during the introduction of the Brenner Amendment. It was fought after one of the out-group, Herb Waldhorn, was turned down for the TA appointment by the institute's Executive Committee, which ruled on TA appointments. The Brenner faction felt that the committee was stacked against them, and they proposed that members could be nominated from the floor. I don't quite understand how I became involved in the Brenner Amendment on the Brenner side, given my connections to the in-group. But I did go to several meetings organized to support the Brenner Amendment by Eugene Goldberg, Eleanor Jucovy, Martin Wangh, Milton Jucovy, Lou Linn, and others.
I have a vivid memory of a meeting at which the Brenner Amendment was discussed and voted on. I recall Kurt Eissler speaking again. He said that when it comes to national politics he is a radical but within institute politics he is a conservative. Victor Rosen spoke next. He said “I can detect the fine Machiavellian hand of Robert Bak.” There was also an election for President of the Institute or Society: Ibo Silverman against Martin Stein. I believe Silverman won. The Brenner Amendment required a 2/3 vote to pass and failed by one vote.
In any case, some of my favored status with the in-group survived my support of the Brenner Amendment. The next major political event (early 80's) was the so-called Gross insurrection. George, as President of the institute, was Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute. The BOT presumably had the final say on all educational matters, including the appointment of Training Analysts and Instructors. The Educational Committee proposed Bob Kabcenell for a Training Analyst appointment. He was supported by Ruth Eissler. Bob was also one of the members of the “Perversion Seminar.” George and the Institute Board refused to approve Bob Kabcenell's appointment, which led to a confrontation between the two bodies.
The confrontation was triggered because George insisted on a closed vote. The in-group nominated two candidates for the Board of Trustees, Mike Porder and myself, with the hope that this would change the voting majority on the Board of Trustees. George, very vigorously, opposed our candidacy and we lost. George had the non-faculty society members on his side as well as the faculty out-group. But the Gross insurrection did bring into focus the problem with the TA appointment procedures and a committee was appointed to make recommendations to change the procedure. The committee included Bill Grossman, Sandy Abend, and Marty Willick. They recommended a new procedure, self-nomination, and case presentation, and a review which was adopted by the Executive Council.
At that time I was being considered for a Training Analyst appointment. After being asked to apply, I presented two cases to Joan Erle and was approved. This was in 1985. At that time I was active in the institute as well as the society. I taught courses, supervised, and served as a faculty adviser. At the same time, I became involved in the issue of lay analysts
and the effort of Division 39 to force APsaA to train non-physicians. I had a personal interest in the matter because my wife was a psychologist. She had applied in the early 70s for admission to NYPSI as a CORST candidate but was turned down. She was one of the prime movers of the effort and the lawsuit that followed. Division 39 sued APsaA, IPA, NYPSI, and Columbia for restraint of trade.
The details of the suit have been written up by Bob Wallerstein and Dick Simons. I was close to both of them and played some role in the negotiations, including those that lead to the replacement of Paul Weiss as the lawyer by Joe Klein. In supporting the lawsuit, I was opposing almost everybody at NYPSI, both in the in-group and the out-group. The settlement of the lawsuit did have consequences for me personally. IPTAR and CFS became institutes in the IPA. And Arlene became a member of both the IPA an APsaA. We both mounted a campaign to get members of IPTAR and CFS and the other CIPS institutes to join APsaA. There were also important professional developments in my career. In 1989 I became the editor of the Bulletin of APsaA, which I named The American Psychoanalyst and in 1994 I was appointed editor of JAPA, a very prestigious position.
My nomination for the Board of the Trustees was the last time that I was nominated for any office. In the early nineties I encouraged Arlene to apply for certification. I was trying to show that APsaA welcomes the new members who were able to apply because of the settlement of the lawsuit. Arlene, who was a TA at two institutes, was “continued” by the certification committee. She was told by the committee chair, “We would understand if you decide not to reapply.” Arlene's first thought was to go to the judge who still had an oversight role as part of the lawsuit to assure that APsaA and the other settlement parties would comply with the settlement terms. I argued against doing that. I told her I that would start a discussion on the ApsaA about certification. I began the discussion quoting Bob Michels' ApsaA plenary, which I had published in JAPA. He wrote that the purposes of the Certification Committee and the Scientific Activities committees are in conflict; the implication here was that the Certification Process is not scientific. Many on the members list made the case that the process had no validity and no reliability. This discussion was after the passage of the first delinkage, which ended the certification requirement for membership which NYPSI strongly
opposed and our Fellows on BoPS voted against. But certification was still a requirement for voting for bylaws, running for office, and TA appointment. I became a vigorous advocate for what was called the second delinkage—ending the certification requirement for voting for bylaws and for running for office.
I think this accounts, in part, for my being moved from the in-group to the out-group at my institute. I was told by one member, who was a friend, that he would never forgive me for what I did—providing a platform (on the members list) in which non educators (nonTAS) could discuss “educational matters.” Another colleague later on told me that I had destroyed psychoanalytic education by advocating for appointing certified members TAs.
Arlene did reapply for certification and was certified. The chair of the new committee told her he would recommend passing her, but as he walked out of the room he said “I hope now you will call off your husband.”
It took a second bylaw amendment before the certification requirement for voting for bylaws and running for office was removed from the bylaws. I am convinced my advocacy and the successful outcome contributed to my becoming persona non grata and being shunned and excluded from an institute and a society that I have been a member of for 49 years.
To continue the certification saga, the third delinkage became unnecessary because a six-point plan sunsetted BoPS and the bylaw for the certification requirement is now a matter for local institutes, except for those institutes that have joined another national body, AAPE, which is an externalized BoPS set up to maintain educational “standards” and avoid APsaA member oversight. It is significant that the NYPSI EC has voted not to join AAPE. But I do not think they will ever agree to appoint TAs who are not certified, though they will probably agree to a waiver system which would allow a candidate to have a non-TA as a personal/training analyst. I think there have been positive changes at NYPSI in a progressive direction more in accord with my own views. But that has not done much to improve my standing. For example, my request to join the website committee and the PR committee were both rejected—the latter, twice and unanimously by the members of the PR committee. And there are several members that I have had long relationships with who
will no longer interact with me. I have also made a series of proposals for projects which have also been rejected. I have been told that no project will fly if it is proposed by me Those in charge of NYPSI have limited interest in or toleration for dissent, engaging in dialogue, or studying our history. I am not optimistic that this contribution will be seriously considered by those in charge.
I now have a better idea about the politics of the NYPSI present and past and the key players as a result of recent conversations with some members who read what I have written so far and responded. They point out what is missing from my report is an account of the movement toward progressive change which is developing now; but this, in large part, depends on the passing of the bylaw amendments which are not certain to be adopted. The bylaws have to do with faculty membership of all graduates, the appointment of the FAC, Faculty Advising Committee, which appoints TAs, and the allowing of nonTAs to run for the EX. There is only one section in the EV for non TAs right now. The larger picture is that there is now, as there always has been, an in-group, TAs and their acolytes, and an out-group, faculty TAs and nonTAs. The in-group is intent on maintaining a majority of the faculty and a majority on the EC. Appointment of TAs is important. Although the system of appointment has changed to self nomination and case presentation, the final decision is the FAC.
The Brenner Amendment controversy came about because the FAC would not appoint a member of the Brenner out-group (Herb Waldron) TA. (He was eventually made a TA, even though the amendment failed to get a 2/3 majority by one vote.) His aim was to change the makeup of the FAC by allowing nominations from the floor—presumably nominations of TAs who belonged to the Brenner out-group. The Gross insurrection occurred when a TA proposed by the in-group (Bob Kabcenell) was turned down by the Board of Trustees, chaired by the President of the Institute, George Gross. Over the decades the in-group has organized to assure that three candidates are elected when there is an election in which the entire membership or the faculty votes. This involves telephone trees to advise their supporters who to vote for. The in-group uses peer pressure and the promise of faculty appointments, patient referrals and, the “ultimate,” TA appointments to achieve compliance. There does now exist a group of eight members (TAs) who seem to be supporting a
progressive change. And six women and one man, who I call the gang of seven, that oppose change.
It has been traditional at the NYPSI for many decades for women to line up on the in-group, anti-progressive side, including Phyllis Greenacre, Lillian Malcove, Ruth Loveland, Ruth Eissler, Joan Erle and Lilly Bussell. The male members have included Martin Stein, Robert Back, and Manny Furer (although he became more liberal toward the end of his life). Included in the next generation prominently were Lester Schwartz and Bill Grossman. Bill opposed the certification requirement for TA appointment because he thought it was a slippery slope toward the end of the TA system itself.