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Dear Friends:
I am sending an additional Rundbrief because of the current problems. Eitingon did not quite catch the point of my »Hamlet« reference. What I meant was this. In my opinion all the European Societies (I can answer for the British one) will vote with an enormous majority in favour of our continuing to admit and recognise lay analysts. The Americans, as we know, are almost unanimously against this. The meeting to achieve agreement when the only dissentient would be absent would be like playing »Hamlet« without the Prince of Denmark, i.e. with the essential factor missing.
I agree of course with his proposal that we meet a couple of days earlier at the Congress, so as to make final arrangements, but I am sure he does not mean that everything should be left till then. The main problem we have in preparing for the Congress is to formulate fully, unambiguously, and exactly the nature of whatever points may be at issue, and I do not think this is at all difficult. I sent him last week a copy of a similar questionnaire which was being used in our Society and will report the results in my next Rundbrief. No doubt this particular form can be improved on, though we drew it up with special care. It seems to me that a number of the points involved in the question are mainly matters of academic opinion. The only two really practical issues I perceive, i.e. the only two that have practical bearings and may give rise to friction, are (1) the extent to which Training Committees should urge, if at all, lay candidates to acquire a medical qualification when this is possible for them, and (2) to what extent local societies are to be allowed to preserve their own autonomy in the matter. The second point rises the delicate question of the relations between the various Training Committees. I feel sure myself that it should be possible, by means of correspondence, to draw up such a programme as I have indicated. Then, when this is fixed, it would be possible for the various Soci