The Committee on Training for Research of the Board on Professional Standards had its inception as an ad hoc committee established in 1956 as an offshoot from the then Committee on Training Standards, the committee charged with passing on all requests for variance from the established minimal standards for psychoanalytic training. The intent was to establish a new committee which might encourage the recruitment to psychoanalytic research of especially qualified and motivated non-medical behavioral scientists within the whole range of scholarly disciplines whose concerns are related to psychoanalysis. This action was in response to the widespread recognition of the serious scientific lag both of psychoanalytic research proper and of psychoanalytically informed and guided research in neighbor disciplines, a lag made up of the flagging recruitment of medically trained analysts to research and compounded by the rigorous barriers against clinical training in analysis for nonmedical behavioral scientists.
Under the rules established by the Board of Professional Standards in 1956, especially qualified non-medical research scholars could apply to the Board through the Committee on Training for Research for a waiver of the usual medical requirement in order to take full clinical psychoanalytic training. The applicant would need to meet three criteria: 1) that he demonstrate requisite clinical aptitude and competence (in psychotherapeutic and other clinical work), 2) that he be an established and recognized investigator in an area of behavioral science, and 3) that he propose a program of research endeavor to which psychoanalytic training and experience would be clearly and directly relevant. The local institute was to satisfy itself in regard to the first criterion; the Committee on Training for Research would be concerned about the other two. The aim of this program was to add both to the body of research within psychoanalysis and to psychoanalytically influenced research in neighbor fields. A secondary aim was the twofold multiplier effect, the stimulation of interest in research and in research careers among psychoanalysts, and the stimulation of interest in psychoanalysis among the behavioral scientists in universities.
Member institutes would also under this program continue in their right to offer to non-medical scientists a modified or partial psychoanalytic training experience, consisting of personal analysis with a training analyst and participation in selected theoretical and clinical seminars. The concern of the Board was only with the proper safeguards in those instances that would involve supervised analytic work, and institute graduation with competence as a clinical analyst. The stipulation of the program was that the psychoanalytic training, and the continuing psychoanalytic work afterwards would be in the overall service of a career primarily of research, not of clinical practice.
In the 13 years of operation of this program between 1956 and 1968, only 32 waiver applications were submitted, and by a total of only 10 of the institutes, with 18 of the total of 32 coming from three institutes (8 from New York, 5 from Western New England, and 5 from Topeka). Of the 32 submissions, 27 were recommended by the Committee and approved by the Board, 3 were rejected, one was deferred, and one was withdrawn by the proposing institute, to be subsequently (successfully) resubmitted. These research candidates have come from a considerable range of disciplines, the largest number from clinical or developmental psychology, but also from sociology, law, pediatrics (a non-psychiatric medical research candidate), business administration, and social work.
In relation to the aims of the research training program, to enhance the sum total of scholarly and research activity in psychoanalysis through this recruitment and training effort directed to the psychoanalytically interested behavioral scientist, this total yield has fallen considerably short of expectation. Where too many had been feared, possibly seeking psychoanalytic training for covert clinical purposes under cover of an ostensible research goal, actually too few had come forward—averaging but two and a half per year.
The Committee on Training for Research devoted considerable study over many meetings, and consulted with university educators, other outside consultants, the research candidates themselves, analyst colleagues working in research, etc., in the effort to understand the complex factors playing a role in this paucity of applications for the analytic research training program. The substance of those findings as reported to the Board on Professional Standards over a sequence of three meetings was summarized in an article in the first issue of this Newsletter (February, 1967). Factors both extrinsic and intrinsic to the specific operation of the research training program were adduced. Out of this study came a series of three major recommendations in the operation
of our research training and recruitment effort, all directed to aspects of the overall problem that were felt to be susceptible to at least partial remedy by organizational action. These recommendations were 1) that the eligibility requirements for waiver application be liberalized to admit younger researches of promise, at prior career points with more, open options ahead of them (despite the somewhat greater risk that some of these careers would not work out and might be lost to research); 2) that the Association provide a scientific home for the graduates of its research training programs by encouraging local membership recognition and providing as well an appropriate form of membership recognition within the national organization; and 3) that psychoanalysts be encouraged to devote increased time and effort to the teaching of analytic concepts and viewpoints outside the Institutes, not only to future psychiatrists in the medical schools but also to behavioral science students in the graduate schools in the universities.
In a series of actions over the last several Board meetings these recommendations have all been positively acted upon. In December 1967, the eligibility requirements for research waiver applications were liberalized from that of established research competence to that of demonstrated research aptitude and promise, and in May 1968 for the first time a highly qualified research candidate could be accepted at a career point where he had not yet received his doctorate. In December 1966 the Board recommended and the Executive Council voted to establish an Ad Hoc Committee on Recognition to Research Graduates of Institutes. This Committee under the chairmanship of George Pollock, a member and the former chairman of the Committee on Training for Research, is now studying the many professional and legal issues involved in the setting up of the recommended membership recognition and will shortly bring its recommendations to Council for discussion and action.
At the present point in its development, the Committee on Training for Research, while continuing its ongoing function of processing applications for waivers by institutes on behalf of non-medical research candidates, has now turned the main body of its attention to its larger overall charge, the fuller promotion of research training and activity within psychoanalysis as a whole, that is with all candidates within the institutes, not just with the nonmedical specific research candidates. A series of meetings are underway with representatives from the local institutes (attended by just about all) addressed to all of these issues. It is hoped that from these meetings a further series of recommendations will emerge designed to foster the overall goal of increased research and scholarship in our field with the widest quality participation by medical and non-medical analytic researchers alike.