Conversion of Psychotherapy to Psychoanalysis: The Policies of the Institutes of the American

Analysts trained as recently as a decade ago recall being discouraged or even prohibited from converting patients they had been seeing in psychotherapy into psychoanalytic control cases. Today one often hears that a decline in the numbers of patients presenting themselves for analysis has led to a change in the practices of many analysts, who now start patients in once-or twice-a-week therapy and then convert them to analysis. Moreover, the American Psychoanalytic Association has made its acceptance of conversion more explicit, although this position does not appear to be as well known as it should be. To learn more about their current policies I made a survey of the institutes of the American concerning conversion. The results may be useful, since at least one institute does not realize that the American looks more favorably on conversion now than in the past.

I asked the chairmen of the education committees whether their institutes allow control cases to be converted, what conditions govern conversion, and whether their policies have changed over the past 10 to 20 years. All of the institutes that responded to my inquiries — 24 of the 26 — allow conversion. No institute has a formal policy, and most treat conversion as one of the many