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The members of the American Psychoanalytic Association 1958-59 roster were sent questionnaires about practices and opinions. Four hundred and thirty members (or fifty-six per cent of the membership) returned the questionnaire. Of interest to the authors was the unexpected frequency with which analysts engaged in 'various medical practices', such as physical examinations, laboratory examinations, prescription of drugs, prescription of shock treatment, and signing of commitment papers. Also of note was the fact that few analysts excluded third parties completely from their relationship with the patient. Other interesting facts elicited were that sixty-eight per cent of the analysts stated that they belong to no organized religious group, fifty-two per cent approved of lay analysis, seventy-one per cent approved of training analysts communicating with the officers of the institute about their candidates, and about fifty per cent believed that legal prohibition of abortion is socially desirable.
From the study the authors feel that analysts are not so purely analytic and psychological as had been suspected but that various medical, directive, and organic practices have crept in, blurring the distinctions between psychoanalysis and psychiatry. One criticism of the study mentioned by the authors is the failure to distinguish between what the analyst does with analytic patients and with non-analytic ones. A second criticism might have to do with the missing forty-four per cent of the sample whose opinions and practices may for various reasons differ from their brethren who answered the questionnaire.