In 1955, when the first edition of Brenner's An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis was published, psychoanalytic theory and therapy were the dominant forces in American psychiatry. In the post-World War II era, interest in psychiatric training and research expanded rapidly in the United States. Departments of psychiatry in medical schools and in general hospitals were developing, and the discipline was moving out of state and mental hospitals and was increasingly identified with the mainstream of medicine and medical education. The military and subsequent civilian experience had