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An interesting facet of the history of psychoanalysis has been its extraordinary positive and popular reception in the USA, beginning with Freud's visit to Clark University in 1909, and fostered by leading academic physicians and psychologists. After World War II, and at least through the 1960s, psychoanalysis dominated American psychiatry and psychiatric education, presenting the most engaging and productive model for psychiatrists attempting to understand the seriously mentally ill as well as the neuroses of everyday life. However, the rise of neuro-science and biological treatments during the last decade and a half, in combination with the failure of psychoanalysis to live up to the excessive promises attributed to it for the relief of suffering, led to a predictable counter-reaction. Not only has psychoanalysis lost its privileged position in academic psychiatry, but today many psychoanalysts perceive themselves as embattled and on the defensive, trying to maintain a foothold in medical psychiatric education.
This very timely volume, addressed primarily to a North American audience, discusses a variety of views about what has happened in the complex relationship of psychoanalysis and academic psychiatry and what might be done to restore the intimacy they once enjoyed. There are thirteen chapters by eminently qualified experts who address different aspects of the relationship of psychoanalysis and psychiatric education. All of the authors share the view that it is important for the health of psychoanalysis in the U.S.A. that this relationship should not fragment, a view that might not be so fully accepted everywhere in the analytic world. The chapters range from good to brilliant, and although they don't all succeed in addressing the title topic, they all have something interesting to say. Although the touch is light, the hand of the Chicago Institute clearly stamps the book.
Throughout the book the authors try to help psychoanalysts to understand the requir