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‘Is this the face of one of the century's most sinister cult leaders?’ asks the headline next to a picture of Jung in The Independent of 6 October 1996. ‘Freud the fraud!’ proclaims another headline in The Sunday Times of 29 March 1994. Nowadays, one can hardly open a newspaper without coming across a highly charged article on psychotherapy or analysis. Their tone is often sarcastic and scathing and potentially undermining to the profession. Some articles are better researched than others and some even give voice to those who have actually experienced psychotherapy for themselves. But, more frequently, the popular press seem intent on having a go at our profession. Why should this be so and is there anything we can do about it? Fred Plaut's excellent and very timely paper ‘Analytiker als Minorität’ [Analysts as a minority] is concerned with exactly these questions and explores them in depth from a socio-psychological perspective. His approach takes in the public dimension of our profession and allows an analysis of the socio-political dynamics involved. The paper is written in German and, in part, specifically addresses the situation in Germany where most analysts do not practice privately and are accountable to the Health Authorities who pay them. Yet the answers Plaut arrives at are, I believe, equally valid for analysts in Britain because the socio-political problems involved traverse all borders.
As the paper has not been translated, I will attempt to give the reader an impression of its main ideas and arguments. Plaut's style is rather narrative and the paper reads like a story. He begins by introducing the idea of a professional identity which contrasts sharply with the public image of the analyst. Who we are to ourselves as analysts and how we are perceived in public life are very different. This chasm influences the individual analyst who, when asked to name his profession in a public situation, might variously answer with doctor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst,