Chapter 4 Authoritarianism, Culture, and Personality in Psychoanalytic Education1

In the previous chapter, I recommended developing strategies for institutional reorganization that would reduce the pathological symptoms within psychoanalytic education. In essence, my recommendations centered upon a combined art academy and university college model, and a corresponding functional administrative structure.

Here I wish to elaborate on the factors that contribute to the combination of idealization processes and paranoiagenic developments in psychoanalytic institutes, and their negative consequences on the educational process and for psychoanalytic creativity.

I have been able to observe at least three psychoanalytic institutions in depth over a period of time: the Chilean Pyschoanalytic Institute, the Topeka Psychoanalytic Institute, and the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research. In addition, I have had briefer experiences as guest student and faculty member of other institutes. The experiences gathered in all these activities have strongly influenced the following observations. My basic thesis is that the principal cause of authoritarianism in psychoanalytic institutes is the motivated discrepancy between explicit educational goals and actual administrative structure. However, unacknowledged influences from the surrounding culture, from prevalent political crosscurrents—particularly totalitarian ideologies—from the educational system generally, and the personality of the psychoanalytic leader, all have the potential to contribute to authoritarianism in

subtle or not so subtle ways. Sometimes even ordinary social conventionality may be transformed into a focused oppression.

The most immediate effect of a nonfunctional administrative structure is the growth of authoritarian tendencies in the organization. The development of chaos is another consequence, but insofar as organizations continue their operations, chaos is usually complemented or followed by authoritarianism. The immediate sympt