McSwain: You have been so influential within analysis, on the local, national, and international levels that one forgets there were beginnings. Let's set the stage by reviewing your career.
Weinshel: I came from Milwaukee, went to the University of Wisconsin for my premedical and medical schooling, and came back to the University for the first two years of my residency. In between, I spent a number of years in the army, which were really very critical in what happened in my future. But I got into psychiatry in a flukey sort of way. That had not been my original plan, but I got sent to the School of Military Neuropsychiatry in New York, where I was assigned to the Department of Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital. There I came in contact with a whole slew of well-known psychoanalysts who were involved in the weekly meetings—staff meetings, presentations of various sorts. In addition, I got to meet Norm Reider, who was my boss, so to speak. He was in charge of the administration of those doctors who were studying to be military psychiatrists. Because of my contact with Norm, I came to Mount Zion and a few years later got involved in the psychoanalytic program. I started in 1954 and graduated in '59, if I remember correctly.
McSwain: The connection between Mount Zion and the Institute was a very close one.
Weinshel: I can't separate my residency from the period I was in training at the Institute. For one thing, there was always such an overlap between the Mount Zion Department of Psychiatry and the Institute, both geographically (they were half a block from each other) and ideologically, as well as in terms of personnel. I think everybody who was touched by the Mount Zion experience had to be formed by it in significant ways. One of the things that made a great impression on me had to do with the idea of interdisciplinary training. The various trainees—psychiatric residents, social work students and fellows, pre- and postdoctoral psychology students, and, later, doctorate of mental health trainees—all worked together. The unique ingredient was that they all were treated as equals, did the same work, and were expected to perform equally. This pool of trainees were taught by analysts as well as by psychoanalytically oriented nonmedical clinicians, who often were preeminent in their own fields, decorated teachers like Shirley Cooper. Added to that were the opportunities afforded by a community-based hospital to apply and expand psychoanalytic thinking to a variety of medical and community services, in addition to the central training in psychotherapy. This experience with a synthesis of the different disciplines was the background for the way most of us here felt about the whole issue in The American with regard to the training of non-M.D.s. The group here was known for their enthusiastic interest in this issue over a ten- to twelve-year period. I'm not saying that it was only the Mount Zion graduates who were involved in this. Certainly Stan Goodman was very helpful in the role we played in putting forward the proposals for non-M.D. training, the ideas which were known as the San Francisco Proposal. This attitude ws a natural extension of our experience.
McSwain: In a certain sense there had already been an experiment with nonmedical people, because so many here were trained so extensively by analysts.
Weinshel: Well, when somebody writes the ultimate history of the entry of non-M.D.s into The American, I think what went on in San Francisco will have to become a chapter of that history, particularly the way in which a group—and not that small a group—of non-M.D. therapists, social workers, D.M.H. graduates, and psychologists who had trained at various places in the area and had a burning, sincere interest in becoming analysts exerted a gentle, persuasive, unrelenting pressure that invigorated many of the people within our own institute who, in turn, transmitted that to the executives of The American who at one point were prepared to put the whole non-M.D. issue on the back burner. I'm looking forward to seeing that chapter.
McSwain: I am too. But that's another collaboration. What else do you think we've learned from the Mount Zion experience?
Weinshel: The other thing that we learned from Norm was one's responsibility as a mental health worker to the community. There were principles we learned as part of our work that affected the way we viewed the community mental health program. Some of this interest also carried over to the Institute.
McSwain: I've always been struck by how public psychoanalysts have been in this area and how that has led to cross-fertilization in many ways.
Weinshel: Yes, in fact, before I got into the Institute I had the opportunity to hear a number of senior analysts give public lectures at U.C. I remember the one that impressed me the most was Bernfeld. He had a tremendous magnetism and a knack for making very complicated concepts relatively easy to understand. I was very, very drawn to him for this and other reasons. And then, of course, there was Erikson and his absolute charisma. I had known Norm Reider before, but I was now impressed by his understanding of psychosomatic issues and the psychological aspects of somatic illnesses. It was also the first time I had contact with Windholz, who was very impressive as a lecturer and later as a teacher. Later there was San Francisco's program for the extension division. If we weren't the first of the institutes to have an extension division (and Haskell Norman really got that going), certainly we were one of the first and most active. That program became a model for many of the other institutes. Not long after that we began working with academics in the various universities and colleges in the area, of which there are many, and that too was a fruitful experience.
McSwain: What was it like when you were a candidate?
Weinshel: I enjoyed my candidacy period. I was in a good group, and, although I don't think the program was as well organized as now, San Francisco was still a relatively young institute. There were some very good teachers, and I thoroughly enjoyed the period. Two things made life somewhat easier. It was American psychoanalysis; the psychoanalysis here was essentially a monolithic one. We were taught and learned one particular point of view, namely that of the structural model and ego psychology, and so it was easier—it may not have been better in the long run—but it was easier to be able to concentrate on one particular point of view. The other thing that was important was the fact that more patients were available. I think most of us were able to get a sufficient amount of analytic experience without
the trouble that our candidates and young analysts have to deal with today.
McSwain: How do you think the “wild west” locale itself has influenced the development of psychoanalysis here?
Weinshel: Well, I think it's difficult to think of that without thinking of San Francisco as a city and some of its attributes. It's always been a very appealing place to live and has attracted many people who are interested in analysis, either for their candidacy or for settling down to start a practice. There are so many analysts throughout the country who have mentioned to me that they would love to be able to live in San Francisco. The other thing that I think is important about it is that it's a very relaxed town. The motto here is “live and let live.” It's the kind of atmosphere, I think, that analysts appreciate and like. And I think that atmosphere has influenced the Institute. Even though in many ways the San Francisco Institute has always been a relatively conservative institution, it also has been relatively relaxed. It doesn't push people around too much. That was so, I think, when I was a candidate, and I think it still is true, maybe even more so.
McSwain: I wonder how you account for the juxtaposition of the very liberal social attitudes that many analysts historically have held here and the rather conservative theoretical orientation.
Weinshel: I don't know why that is so, but there's no question that it is true. It's puzzling. It may have to do with the way the San Francisco Institute and Society developed. A large percentage—a large bloc—of the founders were people who'd come here during the Hitlerian or post-Hitlerian period and who had been very close not just to Freudianism but also to Freud. That may be one of the reasons the Institute was founded along very conservative lines and that the students of the founders continued in the same direction. But when all is said and done, I confess I don't know the answer.
McSwain: Also this is an institute that has been fairly cohesive. There've never been splits or divisions. Do you have any ideas on that?
Weinshel: I think the whole question of why a particular institute gets along relatively well while others are plagued by threats of disruption and splits and all kinds of internal squabbles is something the reasons for which have escaped us. I know for a period of time The American had a committee working under the aegis of COPE that tried to study the questions of why the milieus of institutes were so different, and, as far as I recall, no definite resolution of that question came about. As I remember, at least, the people within the Institute got along quite well with one another. I think we've had our share of disagreements, both administratively and scientifically, but it didn't seem to cause too much difficulty. Within the Institute and within the education committee there are differences of opinion, but they haven't threatened to wreck the whole structure of the place. Maybe it was just fortunate that the people who got together got along well with each other. It's somewhat mysterious. I know that when I first started going to meetings of The American many colleagues kind of envied the people from San Francisco because they seemed to be having such a good time together.
McSwain: It's well known that you and Vic Calef were very close friends. Would you like to say a few words about him?
Weinshel: Yes, I would. I think Vic was an extraordinarily interesting and impressive individual. The first thing that attracted me to him was a tremendous warmth that he exhibited. He had an enormous capacity for loving, and also for the opposite. He could be very, very angry with people; he was particularly intolerant of those who he felt did not do justice to psychoanalysis and its principles. He was a charismatic man who exhibited the intensity of his feelings freely and often. He had a great love of analysis and wanted to know more and more and more about it. I remember when he was on his deathbed he called me into his room, and I assumed that he was going to share some great truth about analysis or some important message for me to pass on, but what he wanted to do was talk about a certain passage in one of Freud's papers; he wondered what I thought about it. It was this kind of devotion to analysis which I think impressed a lot of people—even those who didn't agree with him or didn't agree with his particular reading of Freud. We started to work together around 1965. We would meet almost every week for several hours and either talk or think or write together. It was a marvelous experience. Strangely enough, we rarely had any serious difficulties. We didn't always agree with each other, but usually we could resolve the differences before putting down what we wanted to say in writing. In some way we tolerated each other very well, and it became a very exciting relationship. His greatest influence, I think, was not in his written words but in his teaching. He was uncomfortable writing, but he loved to talk. And some of his best statements came right off the cuff. I wouldn't want to guess how many people he influenced—whether it was their decision to enter the profession or the direction of their thinking as analyst. I think he was very, very important—to me, certainly, as well as to the Institute and to analysis generally.
McSwain: He certainly was one of the great characters here who left distinct legacy. What do you think is going to happen now? How do you see the future here?
Weinshel: Well, I think it would be foolhardy not to recognize that there are problems, that there are dangers. I'm not sure whether the biggest dangers and the biggest problems are within science, within our own institute, or part of a much broader social situation. I don't think that the current social climate in our country is particularly favorable to psychoanalysis, but that's a long story in itself. The point is that there are problems. There are problems in terms of the relative unpopularity of psychoanalysis in the medical schools and psychiatric departments. On the other hand, on college campuses there's a tremendous interest, a growing interest in psychoanalysis. How that's going to work out we don't know. Certainly the financial problems besetting our country also affect the psychoanalytic movement. It is more difficult for psychoanalysts to have a reasonably full schedule today than in the past. I think that's particularly difficult for the younger people. On the other hand, I think within our organizations, within our science, it's a tremendously important period. Changes are taking place with great rapidity. It's hard to know how some of the changes are going to affect our work and our future. I think the thing that's been the most striking is not just the change from a relatively monolithic focus on one kind of psychoanalysis—namely the structural theory, ego psychological model—to a much more diverse approach, but more specifically the interest in focusing on what goes on within the analyst during the course of an analysis and what influence the psyche of the analyst plays in the psychoanalysis. It seems to me that's going to influence psychoanalysis tremendously. Now that focus, I think, is connected with the acknowledgment that not only are there many kinds of potential approaches to psychoanalysis but that we are les certain about what we know; we're less certain about what we think; we're less certain about what psychoanalysis is. And there is a movement—sometimes begrudging, sometimes quite enthusiastic—to recognize that there is still so much we don't know for sure. Owen Renik and I wrote a paper last year about the last ten years in psychoanalysis. One of the things we stressed was that these very changes bespeak our confidence in the things we do know and the things psychoanalysis can do. I think that's a very important change. I think—I hope—it will continue. I don't think we can ignore the fact that psychoanalysis is going to be very much influenced by the increasing numbers of non-M.D.s and women within our ranks, not just in San Francisco, where it's been striking, but throughout the country. I think that the lack of significant positions within departments of psychiatry for psychoanalysis is a very serious problem. One of the things this means, of course, is that people who come to the programs have had less exposure to psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic thinking. That's going to put a burden on the individual institutes to provide appropriate preparation for candidates, and particularly I'm referring
McSwain: This might make a very dramatic difference in how the institutes see their function in a more general way.
Weinshel: You're bringing up a point that's very important and has been occupying, even preoccupying some of our organizations, local, national, and international, as to what role the institute should play in teaching psychotherapy and some of the more fundamental bases of psychodynamics and psychoanalysis. I think we're seeing more and more, as we've seen in our own institute, the inclusion of a specific course on psychotherapy in the curriculum. When you put it in the terms of responsibility, it's something that I think the institutes are going to have to do a good deal of thinking about in terms of how much we are able to take on, how much we're able to teach and to train. I think it's not a simple question and it's going to be one of the important issues in the future.
McSwain: Is there anything you would like to add to what we've talked about today?
Weinshel: Well' I certainly hope psychoanalysis continues to flourish. I think psychoanalysis as a science, as a point of view, is always going to be there unless something terrible happens. I hope, and I'm being very personal now, I hope that the younger people will have as much fun and have as good a time in doing analytic work as I have and as many of my contemporaries have. I think that's mostly what I would like to think about in terms of the future.
McSwain: You've had a profound influence on psychoanalysis in many ways, including its future direction. I feel very grateful to you. Thank you.
Barbara S. McSwain, M.S.W., is an advanced candidate at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.
to those who come from departments of psychiatry—the physicians.