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We find the responses to our paper about models for the selection of patients for supervised psychoanalysis most interesting, constructive, and of great value for our further work. We would like to respond to the discussion.
We will start by addressing Dr. Karush and Dr. Bachrach, who have read and responded to our paper from the standpoint of their long experience of the subject and of their interest in the possible advantages of assessing and selecting analysands for candidates under supervision. Many of their questions regarding methodological and clinical questions deal with similar problems and some of them will be answered in one context. The response of Dr. Rothstein is of a different nature, questioning the rationale and attitudes behind the practice of assessing patients for candidates. We consider those questions to be fundamental to any discussion of assessment and selection and will present our standpoint on the question.
We do indeed recognize, as Dr. Karush points out, that our study has methodological flaws. We hope it will be clear from this response that our aspirations are on a level with the limited conclusions that can be derived from the study, which was designed from the beginning not as a research project, but as a means of following the fate of the training cases that had been assessed and selected by the Clinic to the date of termination, regardless of whether the analyst had graduated or not. We knew then, from an earlier questionnaire survey, that some candidates had negative opinions about the assessments made for the candidates by experienced members of the Society. This earlier survey was undertaken when the analytic treatments had been going on for only one or two years, and we wanted to know if and how such opinions changed as the analyses proceeded. For this purpose we started issuing a questionnaire survey every year.