The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute has a long, distinguished, and memorable history.
In 1908, the first practitioners in the United States, A A. Brill, Clarence Obendorf, and a few others trained in Europe, began a discussion group; in 1911, they set up a more formal group for education and study. They established the Society in 1922 and the Institute in 1931. The American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute were admitted independently to the International Psychoanalytic Association at the Weimar Congress. In 1932, the New York Society, together with Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore-Washington, formed the present American Psychoanalytic Association. Later, there were a number of break-away groups that led to the establishment of other psychoanalytic societies and institutes in New York City.
With the influx of analysts from Europe in the late ‘30s and the ‘40s, the Institute grew considerably in number of students and in influence and prestige. Its faculty included many of the most important contributors to psychoanalysis: Bertram Lewin, Herman Nunberg, Heinz Hartmann, Rudolph Lowenstein, Ernst Kris, Phyllis Greenacre, Edith Jacobson, Annie Reich, Margaret Mahler, and Berta Bornstein, Its renown continues with such intellectual leaders as Jacob Arlow, Charles Brenner, Martin Stein, and Leo Stone.
A number of changes have taken place within the Institute over the last several years. To understand these changes, one must understand the structural context in which they occurred, namely, the particular form of governance we have had since our bylaws were codified in 1947.
The Institute is governed by three bodies. The Educational Committee (and its standing committees on admissions, student progress, and curriculum) is responsible for undergraduate education. The Committee is composed of 17 members, some of whom are training analysts, some not. The Board of Trustees, our legal entity, is responsible for financial administration and has a fiduciary relationship to the whole. The faculty has largely an advisory function. However, with its intimate connections with the Educational Committee, its share in policy making is significant. Its relationship with the Educational Committee is typical of the interconnections that characterize the functions of the governing bodies of our institution.
The Society, consisting of graduates of the Institute, is governed by an elected Board of Directors. The Society owns our building, levies and collects dues and assessments, directs our scientific programs, and administers our extension school. Dues and assessments, along with student tuition and supervisory fees, meet the costs of the educational program of the Institute. Thus, the Institute is in considerable part a school financed by its alumni. All members of the Society are also members of the Institute.
The complex arrangement of discrete, shared, and sometimes overlapping responsibility among the several agencies provides for a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances. In times of institutional tension, however, this structure can contribute to the crystallization of local loyalties—competing points of view and aspirations become identified with particular boards or committees, and institutional obstruction may ensue.
Because this multibodied organization deals with a large alumni membership, many of whom are involved in ongoing psychoanalytic study and education, it has been the method of selection of training analysts and course instructors upon which discontent has centered. The most important of the major changes in the Institute surrounds the procedures for selecting training analysts.
Before 1971, the chairman of the Educational Committee would appoint a small Advisory Committee to recommend persons for appointment to the position of training analyst. The Educational Committee voted, and the Board of Trustees confirmed, a simple method involving very few people and a less than thorough review of the nominee.
“We had to rekindle the conviction that the Institute is a valuable place to which to devote one's energies.”
In 1971, following a period of institutional tension and conflict, the method of selection was amended to provide far broader consultation. The Advisory Committee was now elected by the entire Faculty, and more careful review was required. Recommendation was by letter from any training analyst member of the faculty, the letter to provide cogent reasons for the recommendation as well as the names of former teachers and colleagues who might be consulted about the candidate's work.
A similar period of institutional conflict occurred in the early 1980s. It quickly became clear that we had to increase the participation of our members, both faculty and nonfaculty, to open pathways for involvement and advancement that were perceived to be closed or mysteriously complex. We had to rekindle the conviction that the Institute is a valuable place to which to devote one's energies. The hallmark of this effort became self-nomination. This practice, which is now in effect, applies not only to the position of training analyst but also to that of course instructor, to committee work, and the like.
Under the new requirements for selection of training analysts, an applicant must have been a member of the Institute for five years, must have been certified by the American, must currently have four cases in analysis four or five times a week, and must have had a minimum of eight cases prior to application. If the letter of application demonstrates that the applicant meets these requirements,
then the applicant undergoes a review of his analytic work with two senior training analysts. The reports of these analysts, along with other information, are then sent to the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee may seek information from former teachers and colleagues. Self-recommendation and recommendation by others are processed in such a manner that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other.
“The Extension School is now a comprehensive facility, taught by more than 50 of our members and at various times enrolling several hundred students.”
The second major revision in our educational activity was the introduction of a new curriculum in 1988. In the past our five-year program included a pre-first year in which the new student did not enroll in formal classes, but met with preceptors to learn clinical assessment of patients. The pre-first year has been eliminated, and the candidate now begins the first of four full years of class instruction. In addition, the first-year program now includes a series of introductory seminars to give the candidates a historical overview of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice.
This is essentially the same principle that Otto Isakower had in mind when he set up a revised curriculum in the 1950s. In his schema, however, no lecturers or clinical seminars were specifically designated to accomplish this goal. Current introductory seminars present the history of the core concepts of psychoanalysis, including the psychoanalytic view of the mental apparatus, the basic assumptions that govern psychoanalytic practice, fundamentals of instinctual conflict and its consequences, and the fundamentals of psychoanalytic technique.
Another innovation in the first-year curriculum is a series of clinical case presentations given by advanced candidates or recent graduates to provide new candidates with a view of psychoanalytic work as conducted by their contemporaries.
A third change is the expansion of the Extension School under the direction of the Society. The Extension School, staffed by the membership, for many years offered courses in psychoanalysis to other mental health professionals and to the public at large but over the last decade has fallen into disuse. We began its revitalization with a small program for psychiatrists under the direction of John Crow, Richard Kopf, and Edith McNutt The program proved so successful that we expanded a section of it “Application of Psychoanalytic Principles to the Practice of Psychiatry,” for all mental health professionals. At the request of the students, these monthly seminars gave rise to a number of smaller instructional groups, each directed to specific topics and taught by other members recruited to the program.
At the same time, under the direction of Arnold Rothstein, we began a series of psychoanalytic colloquia for psychiatric residents and psychology interns. Lecturers have included Richard Gottlieb, Arnold Rothstein, Charles Brenner, Michael Porder, Martin Willick, Milton Horowitz, and Francis Baudry. Following each lecture, residents and interns engage in small-group discussion.
As these programs got underway, a third division, “Problems of Method in the Application of the Psychoanalytic theory and Practice of the Arts,” led by Francis Baudry and Gail Reed, was added. This program admits students in the humanities as well as mental health professionals.
The Extension School is now a comprehensive facility taught by more than 50 of our members and at various times enrolling several hundred students. The administrative hierarchy that this effort has engendered, now chaired by Arnold Richards, is under the direction of the Board of Directors of the Society.
A fourth major change is in our Treatment Center, which has offered low-cost psychoanalytic treatment continuously since its inception in 1948 under the direction of Heinz Hartmann. The challenges of the Treatment Center have always been to obtain analyzable patients while not contaminating the analytic persona of the candidate and to continue the Center as a source for teaching, clinical investigation, and research. Since the late '40s, the membership has valued and actively participated in affiliated staff conferences as well as in intake conferences.
The Treatment Center, although charging only clinic fees (sometimes as low as $1.00 per session), has been a source of revenue for the Institute. For sometime now, supervisory fees for both Treatment Center cases and for private cases have been turned over to the Institute. In another innovation, soon to take effect, all Treatment Center patients will be private patients of the candidates. To make up for the resultant decrease in Institute income, candidates will pay an incrementally higher tuition as they progress in the program. A larger portion of patient fees will become income to the candidates as the number of analytic patients undertaken increases, while the tuition remains the same.
Another task undertaken this year by the Institute is the sponsorship of a new training facility in New Jersey. The Institute faculty will assist in the creation of an organizational structure and in building a cadre of teachers to help this group qualify as an institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Finally, the Institute has found a way to solve the financial crisis that has plagued it for many years. Over those years there had been a number of investigations into possible sources of financial support, for instance, a foundation or affiliation with a medical school. Some of these avenues were not feasible; others, not desirable. Under the leadership of many treasurers, in particular Robert Scharf and Edward Neressian, we began a cost-cutting program and a serious study of our financial needs.
“This is a welcome change from the ‘50s and ‘60s, when the large student body seemed to be isolated from the faculty and from each other.”
When our complicated finances were clearly explained to the membership, we selected a program of self-help. In February 1989 an assessment of $2,500 was levied on all members. By June this effort to increase the endowment fund had resulted in the accumulation of $490,000, close enough to the target of $500,000 to ensure our operation for at least the next 10 years. This evidence of loyalty and dedication, representing contributions from over 90% of the membership, attests to the high level of morale
and the active participation by the membership. We gave ourselves a self-congratulatory buffet and dance party at the Yale Club on September 15, 1989.
We also have a quarterly Newsletter staffed, in the main, by recent graduates. Newsletter reporters attend the meetings of the Boards and the faculty and meet with the Chairman of the Educational Committee. The Newsletter reports the activities of the Boards and Committees as well as the scientific and social functins of the organization.
“… the effort to increase the endowment fund had resulted in the accumulation of $490,000, close enough to the target of $500,000 to ensure our operation for … 10 years.”
Recently, the candidates formed their own organization to help with many of the professional and practical problems of being involved in a very intense postgraduate educational experience. This is a welcome change from the ‘50s and ‘60s, when the large student body seemed to be isolated from the faculty and from each other. Candidate input has affected the curriculum, courses are livelier, and there is ongoing dialogue between the candidates and the chairperson of the Educational Committee.
Overall, the atmosphere at the Institute has undergone a sea-change. We are finding solutions to many organizational. problems. There is more interaction in new and old programs between generations, and we now have a variety of avenues for bringing our recent graduates into the activities of the Institute.
There is, of course, always institutional lag, and there will no doubt be other cycles of conflict and resolution. But I believe the current spirit of collegiality and dedication to psychoanalysis, which has brought solutions to many difficult problems of long duration, will characterize the New York Psychoanalytic Institute—and Society—for many years to come.
Manuel Furer was the Chairperson of the Educational Committee from 1983-1989.