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I have found this paper by Dr. Dorn provocative and exciting and, in the proper sense of the word, prophetic. The last thing in the world I want to do, however, as an outsider who obviously has no competence in appraising the “inside” issues that are part of the Dorn analysis, is to injure the chance of Dr. Dorn's provocative questions being taken seriously simply by my praising him.
Let me, therefore, disclaim competence about transference and countertransference in training analyses, the narcissistic needs of training analysts, and how authoritarianism can be disguised in the training
analysis. Dr. Dorn intrigues me. Perhaps especially because, no matter how harsh his judgment at any point, his interest is constructive.
I find that my own comments, as an outsider and basically as an educator but also as a clergyman, tend to fall into two clusters, of which one is “pastoral” and the other “educational.”
My own pastoral impulses are set off especially by Dr. Dorn's comment that “analysis is basically a lonely profession.” My sympathy arises, as it has done so often in reading some insightful piece by Freud, realizing that he had had probably ten hours of analysis that day before he got round, in the late evening hours, to writing the article. I have given bits of help on writing to Karl Menninger and other psychoanalysts; and always, what strikes me is the vitality that enables them to think even after they have been “snowed” for hours by difficult relations with patients.
A lot of analysts, of course, just do not write. They seem too exhausted after the belaboring hours of therapeutic work. I think I can understand them, and feel “pastoral” toward them. But my obvious sympathies are with the analysts who know that this is a tough old world, and who are willing to try to analyze it in type even after a rough old day. Still, I do think it must be a rough racket, even if you all manage to get reasonably well paid for your efforts.
My principal comments on Dr. Dorn's art