To the Editor:
Cost, competition and the decline of the respectability of psychoanalysis in the public's eye are threatening the very existence of psychoanalysis. Without compromising our basic tenets which would, too, threaten our existence, we must face reality and respond to the challenge of the times.
We need to do more than establishing a closer liaison with the American Psychiatric Association in attempting to strengthen our medical identity and attain greater political influence. I fear that may tend to benefit psychiatrists and other physicians more than psychoanalysts. I think we have to fight this battle where it is taking place: in the field of cost, competition and respectability, and we need to do it putting forth our identity as psychoanalysts.
It is time that psychoanalysis accepts its responsibility as a contender in its own right as opposed to as a minor byproduct of medicine and psychiatry. They are our ancestors, but we have come of age and they cannot support us anymore.
How can we respond to this challenge? I think it is going to take a great deal of planning and expedient action. I would like to suggest that we consider the following idea:
When taking a public stand on important issues as a group (psychoanalysts), why don't we emphasize the aspects of
our identity that are unique to us and which differentiate us from psychiatrists, psychologists and physicians? This does not mean that we cannot continue to work with all these colleagues in areas of common interest, but emphasis on our unique training and high standards is necessary to let the public know who we really are and what it is we can offer that is special.
So far as respectability is concerned, I think we need to make an extraordinary effort to align and integrate psychoanalytic theory with the “legitimizing” scientific disciplines of cognitive psychology and sociobiology, as suggested by Edward O. Wilson, in his Plenary Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Association in Boston, in May, 1982.
There is need for a special committee (not just the liaison committee) to initiate and develop this overdue integration. I would suggest the leadership of such analysts as Theodore Dorpat of Seattle, Emanuel Peterfreund of New York, and Morton Reiser of New Haven, to mention a few, in such a committee.
Donald V. Stevenson, M.D.
Norfolk