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William Myerson noted the potential for psychoanalytic training to induce trauma, and that long-term, intensive group consultation can help ameliorate those effects. At the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute (HGPI) there exists an 8 year history of consultation, and when there is a lapse what has been learned can be forgotten. Myerson suggested that troubling organizational structures in institutes are bound to the training analyst system, which creates competition that cannot be addressed. He also noted that many analysts report being deeply hurt during their training.
Myerson noted his institute is growing. It was founded by white male psychiatrists in 1975, and in the last 20 years women have been admitted to the faculty and risen to positions of prominence, and now non-psychiatrists are becoming training analysts. Many aspects of this history have been hurtful and suppressed the expression of painful feelings.
As the institute grew, there arose a need for more people to do the work. A younger president tried to democratize the organization, but became incapacitated. The next president was a woman, and her tenure was difficult. She tried to work with the older faculty, while keeping alive the atmosphere of change. In the end, she could please almost no one, leading to the initial outside consultation.
Toward the end of her tenure, one senior faculty member became the subject of an ethics investigation. Also, the old education committee, composed entirely of training analysts, was replaced by a democratized board of directors, which included a candidate representative and non-training analysts. That new board faced this very disturbing ethics investigation at the same time as a new set of rules came into being which governed its function.
The new president, early in his term, wanted to reinstitute the outside consultation, but it took almost until the end of his term for it to take place. This occurred in part because of pressure from candidates. When the cons