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When, during a particular session of my training analysis, I referred to a member of the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology, my New York Psychoanalytic Institute analyst informed me that the individual mentioned was not a psychoanalyst. The 1920s struggle over who is an analyst continued to be fought, albeit no longer against “lay” analysts; a generation later, brother
physicians ostracized each other, ostensibly over dissension from the ordained perspectives on human nature and its biological, social, or cultural influences. Subsequently, differing theories of technique often caused such great altercation within training institutes and membership organizations that the organizations were torn asunder and splinter groups emerged, which, in turn, often split again. Internal institutional strife continues to this day, although in a world hostile to long-term treatment it is more difficult for a dissident group to establish itself independently.
As a naive trainee, I was disturbed by the acrimony in my professional family and found the enmity incomprehensible. I expected senior members to be mature, thinking people, able to negotiate their philosophical differences, unless, of course, these dissensions were personal power plays or vendettas. In that case, how did their behavior reflect on the very field in which they were practicing? Paul Marcus and Alan Rosenberg indicate that psychoanalysts may experience alterand Alan Rosenberg indicate that psychoanalysts may experience alternative viewpoints as threatening attacks on their identity.
Considerable change has taken place, with theoretical and technical rigidities somewhat attenuated. In general, Western culture now emphasizes authority and hierarchy less and diversity more. Similarly in the psychoanalytic realm, Marcus and Rosenberg speak to that very point when they state that the definition of psychoanalysis is “historically contingent” and that culture, language, and geogr