Just as the rumors of Mark Twain's death were greatly exaggerated, so too are the rumors that psychiatric residents are no longer interested in psychoanalysis. This year the Subcommittee on the Resident Fellowship Program, a component of the Committee on University and Medical Education, received 62 completed applications, exactly twice as many as last year. Even though the subcommittee was authorized to choose ten Fellows, the choice was exceedingly difficult. Almost without exception the applicants were of superb quality. Applying were 26 men and 36 women. Three identified themselves as Black, three were in the Army. A surprising number were foreign born: 2 Russians, 2 Germans, 2 Mexicans, and 1 each from the Philippines, Spain, Latvia, Jamaica, Australia, and Poland.
Many of the applicants came from departments of psychiatry where there was no strong analytic presence; indeed, where there was no analytic presence. These extraordinary young men and women sought out analysts to teach them, often traveled many miles for supervision, and frequently convinced their chairmen to invite analysts to teach in their departments. While one function of the fellowship is to recognize and encourage the interest of young psychiatrists in psychoanalysis, another is to encourage interest in analysis in psychiatry departments which have never had or which have lost their psychoanalytic component. The applicants came from programs in Arizona (2), Arkansas (1), California (7), the District of Columbia (2), Florida (2), Hawaii (1), Illinois (1), Kansas (1) Louisiana (2), Maryland (1), Massachusetts (6), Michigan (3), Minnesota (1), Mississippi (1), Missouri (2), New Jersey
(1), New York (7), North Carolina (1), Ohio (1), Oklahoma (1), Pennsylvania (3), Puerto Rico (1), South Carolina (1), Texas (5), Virginia (2), and Washington (1).
Each applicant submitted a letter from the training director, letters from supervisors, a personal statement, and a curriculum vitae. Many of the applicants had worked successfully in other fields before becoming psychiatric residents. Included were artists, neuroanatomists, teachers of normal, emotionally disturbed, and retarded children, ministers, neurologists, pediatricians (including an associate professor), a film editor, obstetricians, a computer scientist, an anesthesiologist, social workers, people with advanced degrees in literature, a stage director, a poet, family practitioners, and a pharmacist. A prior career was more the rule than the exception. Thus, many of the applicants were older than the typical psychiatric resident. Many were married and had children. Several of the applicants were the children of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Many had held other prestigious fellowships. Almost every applicant had published at least one paper; many had published several; and at least one had published more than 50.
The winners, like the applicants in general, come from a wide geographic distribution; some from departments where the psychoanalytic presence is very minor. Nine are women. One is foreign born, one is black, and one is the child of Holocaust survivors. During the Fellowship year each will be assigned a mentor. Their fare, room and board will be paid to both annual meetings, where they will attend both the regular program and events arranged specially for them. They will receive subscriptions to JAPA and to TAP and will meet with many of last year's fellows, who are setting up a Fellows' Organization and a newsletter.
The members of the Fellowship Subcommittee this past year were James Nash, Harvey Schwartz, Elise W. Snyder, Warren Proci, and Richard Simons. Steven T. Levy, who has headed the subcommittee since its inception, will be leaving to take on the Chair of the Symposium for mental health professionals. Elise W. Snyder takes over as chair of the Fellowship Subcommittee.
The ten winners are:
Sarah D. Atkinson was a PGY 4 and Chief Resident at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center when she applied for the Fellowship. She holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Mathematics from Tulane and an M.D. from the University of Oklahoma. She is the winner of numerous prizes and awards and the Laughlin Fellowship. Dr. Atkinson is actively engaged in research and has published eight papers in Pediatrics and in Psychiatry. She will be a Fellow in Child Psychiatry at The Menninger Hospital and has been accepted as a candidate at the Topeka Psychoanalytic Institute
Jane L. Dulay has just completed her PGY 3 year at the California Pacific Medical Center. She, like her parents was born in the Philippines and was raised to the age of 13 in Okinawa. She was graduated from San Jose State University in 1973 with a degree in occupational therapy. She worked as an occupational therapist with the chronically mentally ill and became increasingly interested in psychoanalysis. She “entered medical school to become a psychiatrist … and psychiatry to become a psychoanalyst.” Dr. Dulay, who received both an M.D. and an M.S. from Berkeley, has published four papers.
Joanne Donker is now a PGY 4 at the Arkansas Department of Human Services. Born in Minnesota, she lived in India and Rome during her childhood. She was graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Psychology in 1975 and received her M.D. from the University of Florida. The next years were spent at home raising two children. While her residency has a commitment to psychodynamic approaches, Dr. Donker is in large measure an autodidact. She is engaged in clinical research and is currently writing on borderline conditions.
Alexander E. Obolsky will be a Fellow in Forensic Psychiatry at Loyola for his PGY 5 year. The Training Director at Northwestern (where he received his B.A. and M.D.) recommended him for the Fellowship because “he wants to be a psychoanalyst and has come half-way around the world to do it.” Dr. Obolsky was born in the then-U.S.S.R., where his reading gave him glimpses (mainly negative) of Freud. He was nonetheless fascinated and, when he arrived in the U.S., his interest in psychoanalysis flourished. He wants to become a psychoanalyst and contribute to the renewal of analytic thought in Russia. This year he hopes to translate basic analytic texts into Russian.
Jennifer T. Rosenberg has begun her second year as a Child Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her B.A. from Wesleyan in African Studies and her M.D. from Case Western Reserve, where she did her General Psychiatry training. From 1983 to 1985 she worked in village health clinics in Gambia and the Ivory Coast. Her interests in international health have continued. Dr. Rosenberg has been active in acquiring psychoanalyst teachers for herself and her fellow residents. She is interested in psychoanalytic studies of film and literature and is deciding whether to become a psychoanalyst.
Rachel Seidel has just entered her second year of Child Fellowship at the Cambridge hospital. She received her B.A. from City College in 1967, her M.A. in Literature from Columbia in 1971, and an R.R.S. in Textile Design from F.I.T. in 1975. She worked as an artist and textile designer, published a book, and owned her own company. She received her M.D. in 1988 from Albert Einstein. Dr. Seidel's experience as the first child of Holocaust survivors has organized some of her interests in the effects of trauma and intergenerational conflict. She speaks six languages, continues to write, and is a Ginsburg Fellow and a Candidate at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute.
Beverly J. Stoute is now a PGY 3 at N.Y. Hospital-Payne Whitney. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, where she received both a John Harvard College and a Harvard College Scholarship. Her interests in psychological phenomena date back to high school where she chose to do a project on the psychiatric wards at Bellevue. She received her M.D. from Yale where she did outstanding biomedical research and received two research grants. Dr. Stoute's interest and skill in clinical work with patients was remarked upon by all who worked with her.
Susan C. Vaughan will be a chief resident during this, her PGY 4 year at P & S where she received her M.D. degree in 1989. She grew up in Houston. There she first encountered Harvard while reading Love Story. Over the objections of her parents and high school counselor, she applied there, was accepted, and was both a John Harvard and a Harvard College Scholar. She is interested in the interface between psychoanalysis and neurobiology and research methodology. This year Dr. Vaughan hopes to pursue research in outcome studies. She has published several papers and is considering psychoanalytic training.
Amy Tyson is a PGY 4 at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. She graduated from Yale in 1981 with a degree in history. For the next two years she worked as a head teacher in the infant-toddler program of the Yale Child Study Center. There her interest in psychiatry and psychoanalysis crystallized and she decided to go to medical school and eventually to work with children. At Yale Medical School, Dr. Tyson won the Lidz prize for an outstanding student thesis in psychiatry. Currently, she is interested in the interaction of temperament and trauma both in her child patients and in a group of women who, as children, were sexually abused.
Grace C. Vigilante, a graduate of Tulane Medical School, is currently a PGY 4 there. She graduated from Princeton in 1981 with a B.A. in English. Deeply concerned about social issues, she is active in PSR and has been an H.I.V. counselor. She is interested in the arts and has performed professionally as a singer and guitarist. Dr. Vigilante has published papers on creativity, child abuse, and Alzheimer's, and has recently written one comparing dancers and anorectics. A Ginzberg Fellow, she plans to obtain psychoanalytic training and perhaps become a child analyst.
Elise W. Snyder, M.D. is the new Chair of the Subcommittee on the Resident Fellowship Program. She is a graduate of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis.