The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis has requested the endorsement and cooperation of the American Psychoanalytic Association to undertake the following educational experiment: “To select a number of students in each of three consecutive years who meet the requirement of a master's degree or its equivalent from a recognized university, as well as the personal qualifications presently demanded of Institute applicants, and to train these students in a full course of theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis, leading to the degree, ‘Doctor of Psychoanalysis.’”
The “Chicago Plan,” authorized by the State of Illinois, hopes to strengthen the establishment of psychoanalysis as an independent profession and at the same time to maintain high training standards.
The proposal was submitted in November 1973, and was presented to Board and Council in December. It is based upon an awareness of the necessity for psychoanalysis to expand its “radius of influence both clinically and in the world of science and scholarship.” Reduced to a simplistic statement, the premise is: If we don't train interested, talented professionals well, others will—inadequately, and to our detriment.
A year of selected clinical experience would be provided in the hope that an attitude of clinical responsibility can be instilled in non-medical persons. The Institute questions the necessity of expertise in somatic ailments, citing the number of past distinguished non-physician analysts. It feels further that expanding numbers of psychoanalytically trained professionals would create, not a surplus, but “a widening respect and a fresh demand for service.”
Attention will be paid to the problems arising from the youth of its new students. However, the Chicago Institute wants to select individuals who are not so fixed in their professional identities that they would have to unlearn biases already instilled in their Ph.D. programs. The financial needs of students, and the recruitment of additional teaching personnel outside of a university structure are challenges to which the Institute feels solutions can be found.
Dr. Edward Weinshel, Chairman of the Board, commented at the BOPS meeting on some organizational issues that would need consideration. Heretofore, when a “non-medical” applicant has applied for full training, the Institute has requested a waiver after a period of partial training. The specific qualifications of the individual are carefully scrutinized by the Committee on Research and Special Training. In addition, full training has been limited to those whose clinical analytic work is expected to be an adjunct to their careers in a special field of interest. The Chicago proposal would provide full training for three groups of six students under a blanket waiver at the outset of training. Graduates would receive a Doctorate in Psychoanalysis and would be primarily clinicians rather than researchers.
The present By-laws of the APsaA would preclude membership for the graduates of this program, and the Chicago Institute is not asking for a change in the By-laws at this stage. Applicants would be clearly informed that there can be no guarantee of membership.
Each member Society and Institute will discuss the issues they perceive, formulate further questions and opinions, and present these to a Joint Committee of Board and Council chaired by Dr. Roy Lilleskov. This committee will review and collate responses and present a report to Board and Council prior to the Denver Meetings. This Newsletter will consider printing contributory comments and opinions in its issue of April 1974.