To the Editor:
I wish to supplement Dr. Kenneth T. Calder's excellent presentation (in the October, 1983 Newsletter) of arguments in favor of the training of nonmedical clinical candidates by the institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Our Association is no longer the sole or only significant representative of psychoanalysis in the United States. Especially in and around New York City, but also in other urban centers, many psychologists and social workers, and some others, have already been trained and are being trained to be psychoanalysts.
The pace of analytic training for psychologists is being stepped up, now that there exists a Division of Psychoanalysis within the American Psychological Association. This division (#39) has a large and active membership; it has founded its own journal (Psychoanalytic Psychology); it holds national meetings twice a year at which numerous excellent papers on all aspects of psychoanalysis are presented; and it is developing plans to facilitate the organization of training institutes. Psychologists and others are carrying on active practices.
Also, in such cities as New York and Los Angeles, there are nonmedical analysts who are treated as respected colleagues (cross-referrals, participation in local meetings, etc.) by their medical counterparts. Among these nonmedical analysts are some who appear (“by invitation”) on programs of the American Psychoanalytic Association and local societies, some who publish in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and other major analytic journals, some who teach in institutes affiliated with the American, and some who are spouses of our members.
In view of these facts and prospects, it seems that the long drawn-out discussions within the American are being carried on either with a head-in-the-sand posture or on the assumption that, as in electoral politics, it is best not to mention the other candidates by name. Neither form of denial will stop these historical changes from taking place; if anything, these changes will be accelerated by the American's conservative stance. And does this conservatism adequately take into account the threat, posed by the increased biological emphasis in psychiatric training, to the quality of the pool of medical applicants for training?
If standards of selection and training outside the American are not always all they should be (an assumption which may be idealizing practices within local institutes of the American), they are likely to improve over time, just as they once did during the early years of the development of psychoanalysis.
It is also questionable whether the American's adopting a policy (now under discussion) will result in a flood of applications by gifted psychologists. For as things now stand, psychologists in institutes of the American would still have the status of outsiders however “special” that status; there would be a dearth of psychologist role models on the faculties of the institutes; and there would be inadequate provision for ensuring an adequate amount of analytic referrals and other such facilitating measures that would foster a sense of true membership and firm analytic identity. Consequently, there is much reason for psychologists to stick together at this time.
No one can predict the future of our discipline with certainty. Nevertheless, on my reading of the current scene, the institutes of the American would be well advised to accept the fact of historical change and on this basis (1) open their doors to nonmedical applicants whose training, experience, and personal qualities suggest that they will become creditable analysts, and (2) assist, in a collegial manner, new nonmedical Freudian institutes in their efforts to develop strong faculties and to establish and maintain the highest standards of selection, training, and practice. As Dr. Calder emphasized, our chief concern should be the future of psychoanalysis.
Roy Schafer, Ph.D.
New York