Is There a Future for American Psychoanalysis? Douglas Kirsner. Pp. 175-200.

Kirsner places the recent lawsuit, Welch, et al. v. the American Psychoanalytic Association, et al., in historical perspective. He distinguishes critical psychoanalysis, which "focuses on an open investigation of the field of the unconscious," from "professionalized" psychoanalysis, which "concentrates on therapy as an end in itself." "Professionalized" psychoanalysis cuts across disciplines and its concerns are money, prestige, care, and security. Kirsner advocates the position of critical psychoanalysis. He describes external and internal factors in the relative decline in American psychoanalysis. He also examines issues in research, training, academia, and dissidence. Most of the problems in American psychoanalysis are due to internal factors caused by "the defense by analysts themselves against Freudian discovery," resulting in an organizational "obsessional structure" which functions to contain anxiety.