Three recommendations regarding the research training program were brought to the Board on Professional Standards by the Committee on Training for Research, chaired by Dr. Robert S. Wallerstein, and were discussed in both the Board and Council. The recommendations of Dr. Wallerstein's Committee were the following:
¶ That the Association consider admitting relatively younger researchers to psychoanalytic training.
¶ That more psychoanalysts engage in teaching in University graduate schools.
¶ That the Association give some form of recognition to graduates of the research training program.
Behind these recommendations lay a painstaking study, initiated out of a concern that far too few individuals were applying for research training. When the program was initiated 10 years ago, apprehensions were expressed that there would be a flood of applications; in reality 6 research candidates have been graduated since the program started. In this study, Dr. Wallerstein's committee sought the opinions of a number of consultants, who helped materially in clarifying the difficulties involved.
The research training program was designed to offer psychoanalytic training to researchers who felt that it would enhance and enrich the work they were doing. It was stipulated at the outset that the Institutes could admit candidates for this type of training only if they had already established themselves as qualified and productive investigators, and only if their goal in undertaking the training was to use it as an added tool in their research, and not for the practice of psychoanalysis.
Among the complex factors discussed in Dr. Wallerstein's report as playing a role in the relative paucity of applicants, a few may be singled out:
¶ Researchers of the calibre and experience required at present are likely to be individuals with established careers who understandably hesitate to make the large sacrifices entailed in analytic training; younger investigators might more readily be attracted.
¶ Psychoanalysis still remains far too isolated from the rest of the scientific and academic community. This has consequences in many directions but in relation to the research training program it means that the teaching centers from which potential candidates might come have little contact with psychoanalysis, and as a result have attitudes toward it that may include varying combinations of lack of interest, lack of knowledge, and outright hostility. This is not a soil from which potential research candidates are likely to spring.
¶ For the research candidate who successfully completes psychoanalytic training and is graduated from an Institute, there is at present “nowhere to go” on a national level, since the Association provides no special category of membership or other form of recognition. This creates understandable resentment in the candidate who has labored so hard to complete his training, and at the same time creates the likelihood that he will drop out of sight and be lost as a contributor to the scientific life of the Association.
Dr. Wallerstein's recommendations were aimed at making a start toward overcoming these obstacles.
The Board on Professional Standards showed great interest in the proposals and they were discussed at length. It was agreed that the first recommendation, that younger researchers be accepted, should not be acted on at present but should be discussed in the Institutes. It was felt that many problems were involved, not the least of which would be the development of criteria for selection. The second proposal, by its nature, called for no action. On the third proposal, the Board recommended to the Executive Council that some form of membership for research graduates be considered.
The Council, meeting on the following day, discussed this last recommendation in detail. The discussion was concluded by a decision to establish an Ad Hoc Committee to study the question of providing some form of recognition by the Association for research candidates graduated by the Institutes.
Members of both Board and Council expressed their appreciation for the excellent work done by Dr. Wallerstein's Committee in preparing this report; the Committee, in addition to its chairman, consists of Drs. Charlotte G. Babcock, Peter H, Knapp, Margaret S. Mahler, George H. Pollock, Morton F. Reiser, Roy Schafer, Daniel Shapiro, and Alfred H. Stanton.