“His CAPS group is meeting this weekend.”
“We 're discussing that in our CAPS group.”
“She's been invited to ASPEN this summer.”
On a Sunday in June 1987, I spent a most interesting and enjoyable afternoon with Samuel and Irene Guttman in their home at Hunter's Green in Pennington, New Jersey learning about CAPS (Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies) and Psychoanalytic Studies at Aspen. Dr. Samuel A. Guttman, psychoanalyst is the Founder of CAPS and an ongoing member of its Board of Trustees. Irene Guttman, Manuscript Editor of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, serves as Administrative Secretary.
Before I was asked to research this article, I had never heard of CAPS, and, none of my analytic contemporaries had heard of it either. When I inquired about it from more senior colleagues, I learned that CAPS exists as one of the more interesting and respected activities in current american psychoanalysis. I went to my meeting with the Guttmans with considerable curiosity. What is the spirit and intention of CAPS? How is it administered? Who are the participants, and what psychoanalytic issues are they talking with each other about?
As an idea CAPS originated in the early fifties when Samuel Guttman and Muriel Gardiner, his close friend and neighbor in Pennington, began to discuss the possibility of forming an organization independent of existing institutes and societies where selected psychoanalytic colleagues could meet to exchange ideas on aspects of analytic theory and practice. They hoped to create an atmosphere which would foster open and honest exploration with a minimum of structure and organizational politics. Over several years they discussed their ideas with Robert Waelder, Rudolph M. Loewenstein, Grete Bibring, Maxwell Gitelson and Bertram D. Lewin and in 1960 a CAPS Advisory Board was established. The orginal CAPS Advisory Board consisted of Jacob A. Arlow, David Beres, Grete L. Bibring, Muriel M. Gardiner, Maxwell Gitelson, Phyllis Greenacre, Ralph R. Greenson, Samuel A. Guttman, Bertram D. Lewin, Rudolph M. Loewenstein, Leo Rangell, Helen Ross, Martin H. Stein, Helen Tartakoff, Robert Waelder, Emanuel Windholz, and Elizabeth R. Zetzel, all major figures in mainstream American psychoanalysis at the time.
CAPS was incorporated in New Jersey as a nonprofit organization. It is not a membership organization; only the Trustees, who are the members of the Advisory Board, are members. Colleagues are invited to join various groups by the Trustees. From the outset, CAPS participants were selected only from psychoanalysts in the United States.
In 1961, the first CAPS group was founded. Fifteen colleagues under the age of 50 who were considered likely to make continuing contributions to one or more areas of psychoanalysis were invited to meet on two weekends per year to talk with each other about any aspect of psychoanalysis they chose. The original group consisted of Brian Bird, Victor Calef, Charles Fisher, Samuel A. Guttman, Heinz Kohut, Samuel D. Lipton, Peter B. Neubauer, Eugene Pumpian-Mindlin, Leo Rangell, Victor H. Rosen, David L. Rubinfine, Alfred Stanton, Martin Stein, Arthur Valenstein and Henry Wormer. These members all knew and liked each other, and they were already giving papers and actively discussing and exploring psychoanalytic issues. Of the original members, three are still active participants in this group.
A year later another group was formed. By 1966, there were four functioning groups and by the end of 1970, there were seven. In 1978, two more groups were started and in 1982, two additional groups were added, bringing the total number to 11. Thus, the oldest CAPS group is starting its 27th year, the youngest its sixth.
CAPS is currently administered by a Board of Trustees which serves as an Advisory Board for the 11 groups. Currently, the Board consists of 12 analysts who are all members of CAPS and a legal advisor. They are Drs. Norman B Atkins, Boyd L. Burris (Treasurer), Stanley Goodman (President), Samuel A. Guttman (Director), Justin Krent, Jocelyn Malkin, Stephen Morgenstern, Shelley Orgel, Morris L. Peltz, Vann Spruiell (Secretary), Harry Trosman, and Robert Wolf, Esq. (legal advisor). The 11 groups are identified by numbers One through Twelve (there is no Group Three) and there are at present 10-16 members in each, with most groups having 14 or 15. Each group recommends its own new members who are then reviewed by the Board of Trustees which makes the final decision. Dr. Guttman says, “It is low-keyed and I believe it is important to keep it that way.”
Currently there are 154 members, ten percent of whom are women. Only American colleagues are invited to join, and only those who are felt to have already made a contribution to some area of psychoanalysis and will continue to make contributions in the future. A quick review of the membership shows that participants come from many parts of the country. Most, though not all, have become leaders in their institutes and/or leading figures in our field. Many have published in the analytic literature. Dr. Guttman feels it is important that members be chosen who are felt to have a genuine investment in the future of psychoanalysis.
The groups are free to function as they choose, exploring any area of interest. Originally the meetings were taped, these tapes remaining the property of the individual groups. Now a reporter is assigned to summarize each session. There is no pressure to make public or to publish the proceedings, although short reports are required for CME accreditation, and these reports of the
discussions have been kept. The original groups began with a guest moderator, an older respected analyst, e.g., Rudolph Loewenstein, Robert Waelder, Anna Freud, Edith Jacobson, Hans Loewald, Margaret Mahler, Leo Stone and Robert Bak, and then moved to choosing a moderator each time from among their own members. Later groups did not have a guest moderator but invited occasional guest participants to discuss particular topics or recent publications. Guest participants have included Heinz Kohut, Erik Erikson, Ralph R. Greenson, Merton M. Gill, Roy Schafer, Phyllis Greenacre, Hanna Segal and Otto F. Kernberg.
Because each group has the freedom to decide what it wishes to discuss, there are differences in interest and emphasis from group to group. For example, Group One, the oldest group, has spent considerable time on metapsychological and theoretical issues, as well as clinical concerns. Another group has focused in depth on issues of psychoanalytic education as well as issues of clinical theory and practice. A third group has had many prepared clinical presentations with ongoing discussion and followup of the clinical material. Each group evolves its own style. Some are more structured than others, suggesting in advance topics for the next meeting. Others begin each meeting spontaneously, with a member presenting a clinical vignette or raising questions about a recent publication. Dr. Guttman says that in general he prefers the latter format: “The work of psychoanalysis is not prepared ahead of time. The prototype for these seminars is the creative analytic process.” Often ideas introduced or questions which are raised during these weekends will stimulate new thoughts prompting participants to go on to develop new concepts on their own.
Two or three groups meet on the same weekend, two times each year, usually at the Nassau Inn in Princeton. The groups meet separately on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but come together for a cocktail party on Friday evening. The individual groups dine together on Saturday night. Occasionally groups have chosen to meet elsewhere. For example, one group met in London in 1983 and another met in Paris in 1986.
CAPS was originally financed by contributions from Samuel Guttman and Muriel Gardiner. Now members handle their own travel and personal expenses. Because travel costs vary considerably depending on whether members come from the east or west coast, most groups have a “travel pool” to which all participants contribute the same amount.
The range of topics covered by the 11 groups over the 25 years from 1961-1986 is truly impressive. There has been considerable thought given to all aspects of metapsychological theory, clinical theory and practice, methodology and research, educational issues, psychoanalytic literature, psychoanalysis as a science and a profession, and the more personal aspects of being an analyst. Topics ranged from considerations of analytic fees to the concept of psychic energy.
In general, as the years have passed there has been less focus on metapsychology and more on clinical material and clinical considerations. Between 1960-1965 frequent topics (as recorded) were narcissism, drives, structural theory and its relation to drive theory, theories of aggression, synthetic functions of the ego, super-ego and super-ego identifications, masochism, castration anxiety and penis envy, and female sexuality. Woven into these theoretical discussions were clinical vignettes offered by the participants. From 1965-1970 theoretical interests continued, but a greater number of meetings focused on clinical issues, e.g., acting out, regression, termination and transference, and there was increasing attention to problems associated with psychoanalytic education.
In the first half of the 1970's, interest continued on issues related to the analytic process, including new attention to gratifications and deprivations in analyzing,
analyzability, and self-analysis. Theoretical issues discussed included perversions, object constancy, homosexuality and narcissism, separation-individuation, action language and various models of the mind. There was increasing attention to problems associated with analytic organizations on both the institute and national level. From 1975-1979 there were, as one would expect, discussions of Kohut's works, Kleinian theory, object relations theory, and psychoanalysis in Europe. Clinical issues expanded to include analysis of the older patient, comparison of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, re-analysis of the analyst, parameters, analytic life cycle issues and resistances in the analyst to analyzing. Considerable attention was given to problems of working with candidates in treatment and supervision (possibly because the CAPS group provides the training analyst with peers from outside his or her institute who do not recognize individual candidates from the particular problems being discussed).
During the first six years of the 1980 s, the number of prepared clinical presentations appears to have increased dramatically. In addition, the range of topics expanded to reflect the issues with which many American analysts are currently struggling in their analytic practices, including frequency of analytic sessions, conversion of psychotherapy to psychoanalysis, reanalysis, long analysis, failed analysis and analysis of patients on medication. There also seems to have been continued attention to personal concerns of the analyst, including new interest in the older analyst or the ill analyst. Three topics discussed by many of the groups during this time were homosexuality, masochism and the perversions.
Psychoanalytic Studies at Aspen developed as an offshoot of CAPS. The idea was first proposed by Gardiner, and in 1970, six of the analysts in the first CAPS group (Brian Bird, Victor Calef, Muriel Gardiner, Samuel Guttman, Leo Rangell and Martin Stein) met in Aspen to discuss the formation of a center where mainstream American psychoanalysts could be invited to come together for two weeks to discuss their ideas and their work in progress in a beautiful, informal setting. Although this organization is not identical with CAPS (it has a separate charter and it is incorporated in Colorado), the Board of Trustees is the same as that of CAPS. Currently, Guttman is Director and Stanley Goodman is President.
Every other year groups of about 12 colleagues are invited with their families to spend two weeks in August in Aspen (up to 75 participants are now invited). Participants are selected by personal recommendation; generally a large percentage are also members of CAPS. In contrast with CAPS, the group membership is not fixed, and there is no lifetime membership. Initially, Psychoanalytic Studies at Aspen was financed by Guttman and Gardiner. More recently, an assessment of participants covers most of the expenses.
About 15 years ago a sum of money was donated anonymously by two American analysts to start two CAPS groups in Europe. One continues today with about 15 people from England, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Austria, under the leadership of Adam Limentani. Other autonomous European groups have since been started with a similar format and purpose.
When the members of CAPS were formally asked by the Board of Trustees whether CAPS had helped them in their work as analysts and in their writing and creative thinking about psychoanalysis, all gave a positive response. And, for the most part, Guttman's aspirations have been fulfilled. He had felt considerable concern during the fifties and early sixties that there be some “island of stability” for the continued development of analytic ideas in a field that appeared to be becoming increasingly political. He is direct in his expressed hope for CAPS: “To pass on to the next generation the best of psychoanalysis—as apolitically as possible.” He compares CAPS to a “think tank” where committed and thoughtful analysts can meet without the usual organizational pressures or the need to present papers or prepared discussions. CAPS does not exist in conflict with or in opposition to organized psychoanalysis. Not surprisingly, new members of CAPS frequently go on to become some of the most influential leaders in our field as educators, theoreticians and clinicians.
As for the resentment and envy which might be felt by the many who are necessarily excluded, Dr. Guttman feels that psychoanalysis can only be enhanced by the formation of more and similar groups dedicated to the same purpose. Perhaps that is part of the legacy which he and Muriel Gardiner will leave to future generations of psychoanalysts.