On a recent visit to Italy I had the opportunity to speak to a group of young people who are interested in starting a clinic to do psychotherapy along psychoanalytic lines in Florence. I thought it might be of interest to some psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in America to report some of the problems they are facing and also to give a general report on the status of psychoanalysis in Florence, as perhaps an example of its status in a typical Western European city.

Florence is situated in central or north central Italy and is famous for its great collections of art and its jewelry market on the Rialto bridge. It has a population of about 400,000. There is not one psychoanalyst in the entire city, nor even more than one psychiatrist who is