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Who knows where ideas come from that sprout and burgeon into exciting adventures with equally magnificent results? In this case, Marcia had just invented a psychoanalysis minor at Colorado College, after having received her second Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (the first was in Classical Philology), primarily because she saw a dearth of any psychoanalytic theory in the Psychology Department’s predominantly cognitive and behavioral curriculum. It then occurred that her husband and Professor of Philosophy, John Riker, at the invitation of Jonathan Lear, became the Kohut Professor at the University of Chicago in the fall of 2003. During that semester, he gave a public lecture on “The Life of the Soul,” which he was also invited (by Arnold Goldberg) to give to the Chicago meeting of self-psychologists, at which time we had the chance to meet, among others, Marian Tolpin, Sallie Jenkins, Ernest Wolf, David Terman, Allen Siegel, and many other talented and intelligent self psychologists. We also attended a “Meet the Author” program at the Psychoanalytic Institute and were amazed at the originality and depth of ideas we were hearing. When we returned home, Marcia longingly expressed the wish that we could have these exceptionally gifted people come to speak at Colorado College for our psychoanalysis minor. But we both understood that this would be much too expensive. Then John said: “Well, if we can’t bring them here, why don’t we go to them?” There followed a phone call to David Terman, at this point Director of the Institute, a meeting with his colleagues on the Board, and it was done! That simple! And so, in 2007 the course came into existence.
It has been 11 years now since we have been bringing our Colorado College students to the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute in the summer for a course lasting for a month or so, which we have entitled “Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Theory and Practice.” Almost 200 students have taken the course or a second course we added for s