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In 1959, Dr. Garma suggested “Relations Between Analysts” as a subject for discussion at our Association during a symposium. Since then he has been working on this line of research.
Freud was the first to deal with the gamut of problems that stem from our daily contact. In “Analysis Terminable and Interminable” he refers in a bitter and disappointed tone to the shortcomings of the personalities of many analysts (Freud, 1937), and in “The History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement” he' points out
how rivalry between colleagues may hamper research and the task in common (Freud, 1914b). But it was not until 1948 that Michael Balint wrote what would be, on an institutional level, the basis for any serious approach to this subject.
Balint denounces the ways in which thought is inhibited in the members of the psychoanalytic institutes and also the dogmatism present in our training system. He states as cause and consequence, “the fact that the candidate tends to form ‘genetic’ groups lenient toward the members of his own group and overcritical of other groups, and in general to follow his masters blindly.” And if the masters belong to different “schools of thought, tries hard to win more candidates to himself and to educate them to be safe, trustworthy, and loyal followers.” This struggle is carried so far with some analysts that, according to Greenacre (1965) they try to guide their candidates in the choice of an analyst for supervision, “to help” them by sending them patients, etc.
It seems that this problem has not yet been overcome and that a situation of rivalry between groups is, to a certain extent, inevitable (; Waelder, 1955; Baranger, 1959). Not all the examples Garma presents belong in this area: an analysand who interprets his young wife's behavior while they are in bed is acting out no matter what the content of the interpretation is. The kind of acting out, however, can be a reflection of the ideology of the group to which he belongs.
I wish to stress one factor