Once again psychoanalysts in Southern California are experiencing the agony of a split in institutional affiliation and loyalty. Though different from earlier struggles in some respects, this event closely follows past patterns.
The first local split took place in the late 1940s, when new institutes and societies were formed in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Los Angeles.
In Southern California, the 1949-50 split resulted in the formation of the Southern California Society (and Institute) for Psychoanalytic Medicine. The name has since been changed to eliminate the medical reference. Formed in part as a counter to the mixed medical and lay European origins and orientation of the Los Angeles Society, the Southern California Society changed through twists and turns into an aggressive advocate of nonmedical training. This orientation became a flash point for its recent differences with The American. In contrast, the Los Angeles Society, home of the European-trained analysts who were instrumental in forming the organization, evolved into a more closed, medically oriented group. More recently, when the program to train research analysts got underway, the Los Angeles Society found it not altogether easy to facilitate the training of nonmedical personnel in large numbers.
In the 1950s the senior members of both organizations were barely speaking to each other. Beginning late in that decade, however, joint meetings were held, mostly with mixed panels; and, as the years passed, the younger members, who had had no experience with the past wars, began to engage in modest social and professional interactions.
Each organization developed its own ambiance, which led to quite different outcomes. Emphasizing camaraderie, members of Southern California were intent on being amiable and warmly accepting of each interested candidate and members. They welcomed ideas and innovation
and initiated connections with the local community. The Los Angeles Society became engulfed in its divisive conflict over Kleinian psychoanalysis.
The Southern California Society welcomed, supported, and stimulated a major program to train research psychoanalysts, in contrast to the medicocentric view at the time of its birth. The Los Angeles Society trained fewer research candidates. Although those who were trained were well chosen, their numbers and influence as a group cannot match that of the graduates of the Southern California program. In the process, Southern California has trained a cadre of professors at UCLA, USC, and Cal Tech who form a very strong core of teachers of psychoanalysis on the undergraduate campuses at these institutions. The presence of significant teachers on these major campuses bodes well for the future of psychoanalysis in this area.
Southern California's extension programs were in the hands of vigorous leaders, who built and maintained a consistently high profile program in the community. For a long time, the extension program of the Los Angeles Society was nonexistent, until it revived a few years ago under new, aggressive leadership, when it rediscovered its latent vigor and potential.
Much of the lethargic performance by the LAPSI can be traced to the prolonged exhaustion that resulted from the Kleinian struggles of the 1960s and 70s, which led the organization to the brink of split and near dissolution. One of the 1950s graduates of LAPSI had discovered Melanie Klein, became enamored of her theory, and began an aggressive campaign to bring her discoveries to the attention of the locals. Preeminent English Kleinians were imported, gave lectures, conducted supervisions, and led seminars. Except for a few lectures, this campaign was conducted privately, outside the auspices of the Society and Institute.
Soon enough a significant number of the younger candidates and members, eager to be identified with the most up-to-date theories and the most aggressive analysts, wished to be identified with the Kleinians. In a city where being on the cutting edge is worn as a badge, the urge to be among the first discoverers can be powerful and attractive to the uninitiated and naive.
Efforts by the partisans of a new school of thought to raise the next generation to be adherents and promoters of the faith can create big problems. The aggressive combatants insist on steering analyses, seminars, and supervision toward the new, “true” theories. They promise to prospective converts among the candidates that they will refer well-paying patients, and they can deliver on the promise because in the community at large there are always people looking for what they believe to be the most modern form of treatment. The established power resists, and trouble begins. When words, negotiations, and diplomacy lead to stalemate, war begins in the form of legal threats and actions. Anger becomes bitterness, and the atmosphere is virtually unlivable.
Another issue is the need to legitimate the next generation. Since The American controlled that process, the Kleinians needed an accredited institute in which to operate. That need locked them into using the framework of LAPSI and led the leaders of LAPSI ultimately to consider dissolving their organization so that a new one could be approved by The American. This strategy was begun, then aborted.
Conditions are different today. Now that The American no longer operates as a North American monopoly for membership in the International, the remaining Kleinians in Los Angeles have formed a separate institute, approved by the IPA. Had such an option existed in the 60s, the Kleinian members of the Los Angeles could have formed a new institute at that time. LAPSI would have had fewer candidates, perhaps, but the horrible events that followed would have been avoided.
Today, as has happened with the formation of the new Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Southern California, it is possible to consider training candidates and opt for eventual accreditation by the IPA. The leaders of this new group claim they are not interested in recognition by anyone, they wish only to train candidates in a world of psychoanalysis free of bureaucratic concerns. Whether they will hold to that view when their candidates reach for accreditation and recognition remains to be seen.
The appeal to join the new organization was greatly enhanced by major disaffections among many members of the Southern California Society and among some members of LAPSI. In their view, the national organization is overly preoccupied with rules, regulations, biases, and, above all, maintaining power in the hands of a self-selecting elite. When a self-proclaimed nonpolitical organization was formed, it appealed to those who felt they had been stung by the arrogance and exclusiveness of those in power.
At recent faculty meetings, impatience with The American was evident. Many people openly expressed their opinion that The American was now expensive and the benefits of membership virtually invisible. They felt that The American does not appear able to promote psychoanalysis in the world at large, and may even be a hindrance. Others disagreed with this view. Interestingly, pointing to the nonmedical training programs underway and the current attempts to separate membership from certification, many who held either view nevertheless thought that The American may now be showing signs of movement.
Recalling their own painful experiences of 15 years ago, some members empathized with the struggles in the Southern California Society. All were relieved that LAPSI was not going through such an upheaval again. There was also a sense of betrayal by the few of the LAPSI past leadership who joined in the formation of the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Those who feel betrayed believe that their best hope is for a more progressive American, and they await the verdict of the vote on membership and certification. If, in their eyes, The American becomes more democratic, they feel that their support for The American and LAPSI will be proven worthwhile. If not, the faculty may reconsider its relationship with The American.