JW: Dr. Goldberg, some people have said that, with your appointment, the Chicago Institute is likely to become a self psychology Institute. Are they right?
AG: I can certainly understand that people might wonder about that possibility. As a matter of fact, I received several letters suggesting that I not run because of what some saw as a problem. I made it clear to them— as I make it clear now— that I will bend over backwards to avoid making the Institute an arena for ideological struggles. I think that self psychology has to succeed or fail on its intellectual and scientific merits, not as an issue of personality. I certainly can see no influence of self psychology on the curriculum or on the running of the Institute- except perhaps that I've become a bit more sensitive to the narcissistic issues involved in administration.
JW: You were one of Heinz Kohut's closest collaborators. Tell us something about your relationship with him and the influence he had on your professional development.
AG: This would be a very long interview if I detailed my relationship with Heinz fully. He was my first supervisor, one of my teachers at the Institute. And he has had a lasting effect on my scientific and professional life. Now that I'm an administrator, what he had to say about being an administrator comes forcefully to mind. Heinz felt that he had learned more about his scientific interests— that is, the study of narcissism— from being an administrator than from any of his other pursuits. He strongly advised people against being administrators because, he said, it was so time consuming. It took people away from scientific efforts. I guess I agree with him to some degree on both counts. Being an administrator does, of course, allow less time for reading and writing, less time for research.
JW: Tell us something about research as it is conceptualized at the Chicago Institute. What are some of the projects going on now?
AG: People for years have talked about doing psychoanalytic research, but the results have been few and far between. At the Institute we are in the beginning stages of developing a separate research arm to gather together the existing psychoanalytic research data from all over the country, all over the world. Right now there is no good central point for finding out what people are doing and thus make possible the kind of collaborative research effort that psychoanalysis needs. By this I mean a closer communicative exchange between researchers, so that people know what the interests of others are and collaboration can begin. I realize, of course, that most good results come from the individual workbench and that large, empirically designed efforts don't often bear much fruit. It remains to be seen where this start in research activities that the Chicago Institute is making will lead us. It's an old, familiar story—you can encourage people to do research, you can make the road a little easier—but ultimately it comes down to the individual's interests.
JW: How is the Chicago Institute's publication, The Annual of Psychoanalysis coming along?
AG: The Annual has been published for the last 17 years as a successful intellectual enterprise but, regrettably, not a financially successful publishing venture. Nonetheless, the Chicago Institute has always felt that it was important to continue publication, and we are fortunate that The Analytic Press shares our opinion that The Annual is an important scholarly venture. It brought out Volume 17 last year, and Volume 18 is scheduled for publication in the fall of 1990. We would like the Annual to continue as a broad-based outlet for a variety of psychoanalytic efforts, and to that end we welcome the submission of papers.
JW: Tell us, Dr. Goldberg, why did you decide to become an analyst?
AG: I was trained at a time when becoming a psychoanalyst was the only route to go in psychiatry. I studied first at the University of Illinois and then at Michael Reese Hospital. I took my analytic training at the Chicago Institute and began private practice thinking that that was what I would do for the rest of my life. I always maintained a teaching interest though. I taught first at Michael Reese and then at another medical school because I had recognized very early that psychoanalysts need to make their presence known in medical schools and in residency trainings and in a variety of other places. I remain firmly convinced that an analyst cannot just sit in his office and see patients; he must be involved with a variety of community approaches. I have always done as much teaching outside of the analytic community as possible. I have written book reviews for daily newspapers. I've tried as best I could to be involved in the psychiatric community. When I saw the chance to become the Director of the Chicago Institute, I thought this would be yet another step to make psychoanalysis known and involved in a variety of community activities. I think psychoanalysis must remain a basic science of psychiatry. In its own way, psychoanalysis is constantly being rediscovered in psychiatry. For instance, posttraumatic neurosis seems to be a recent psychiatric “discovery”— a discovery that psychoanalysts who have read Freud's earliest work will appreciate. I think it's vital that psychoanalysis keep its position as the basic science of psychiatry and join arms in all the new approaches that are going on in psychiatry.
JW: Do those other approaches include the use of medication in psychoanalytic treatment?
AG: Rather than psychoanalysts debating the rightness or wrongness or using medication, I think we should ask why some of us are using it. Certainly the broad use of medication means that we have to learn more about what its use means, how it affects transference and countertransference issues, and what it means for the future of our science.
JW: And how do you see the future of our science?
AG: For some time now I've felt that we were on a downward slope, but not necessarily in an inevitable decline. The downward slope is the result of some very real factors— including the tremendous interest in psychopharmacological approaches to treatment that we've just spoken of, as well as the encouragement of shorter kinds of therapy. We are beginning to respond to these issues with the recruitment of nonmedical psychoanalytic candidates and the inclusion of more neuropsychiatry in psychoanalytic training, thus promoting a more congenial linkage with psychopharmacological approaches. It would not serve psychoanalysis well for us to be insulated. I think we are moving away from what some have called an elitist stance, and that kind of effort will change the direction of the slope.