Psychoanalysis in San Diego has a history spanning four decades, beginning with James Thickstun's location of his office in La Jolla in 1953 upon completion of his training in Seattle. In 1955 he was joined by Allan Rosenblatt, fresh from his training in New York, who discovered San Diego by courtesy of the Navy. Vincent Mazzanti came from Topeka in 1957, and in 1961 Richard Hicks relocated his practice from Ann Arbor and began psychoanalytic training at the Southern California Institute.
Interest in organized analysis was stimulated by the arrival of Norvelle LaMar in 1962 from New York, where he had been a training analyst at the New York Institute. He led the group in irregular meetings, where Hicks presented his first supervised case, books and articles were discussed, and visiting psychoanalytic dignitaries were hosted. At the end of this first decade, the psychoanalytic community included three members of The American, one graduate, and one candidate.
After LaMar's sudden death in 1964, he was succeeded as senior educational leader by Douglass Orr, former Director of the Seattle Institute, who had moved into the San Diego area. Shortly thereafter the group was joined by Saul Karlen, a training analyst from the Columbia Institute, Sanford Izner from Detroit, Philip Baratta from Philadelphia, Peter Manjos from New York, Arthur Burris from Los Angeles, Joseph Abrahams from Washington, and Felix Loeb from Pittsburgh. Among this diverse group, the seeds of analytic training and society formation were planted.
Orr had proposed a novel idea to several leading analysts in Los Angeles and to the appropriate committees of The American. As a result of his efforts, the Los Angeles Institute and the Southern California Institute engaged in a joint effort to develop training in San Diego. This endeavor marked an historical first on two counts: it was the first cooperative effort of any kind between the two institutes since their split some fifteen years previous, and it was the first joint venture by two institutes to establish a third. In 1968, After several years of preliminary discussion, BOPS approved the development of psychoanalytic training under the aegis of a joint committee of the two institutes, with representatives also from San Diego.
This joint committee served as the Education Committee for the new training facility, and in the early years held monthly meetings in Los Angeles. The first training analysts, Orr and Karlen, were followed soon thereafter by Izner, Rosenblatt, and Thickstun, and eventually by Hicks as well. The San Diego members formed “shadow committees” of the joint committee, taking increasing responsibility for implementing the various functions of a new institute, including curriculum development, admissions and progression criteria, and faculty appointments.
When classes started in 1970, the San Diego group was characterized by great diversity. At least ten different psychoanalytic institutes were represented among the early members and faculty. By 1973, almost twenty years after the first arrivals, the soon-to-be Provisional Institute included over fifteen analysts and a dozen students in three classes.
During this second decade, a Low Fee Clinic was also established. Over the years it evolved from a referral service to become first a psychotherapy service, in which local psychiatrists were supervised by the analytic faculty, and finally a low-cost clinic with analyses conducted by clinical associates under supervision of training analysts.
The San Diego Institute was accorded Provisional Status in 1974 and was fully accredited in 1977. Its progress to institute status was completed faster and more smoothly than is typical, having taken about half the usual time. This was due in large measure to extensive efforts by the early leaders and their coworkers, and to the helpful role played by several members of The American, Homer Curtis and Lawrence Hall in particular.
However, a price was paid for those benefits—namely, the suppression of conflicts between strong personalities over various issues. In 1980 the “melting pot” of unity in diversity boiled over in a power struggle that threatened to be divisive. The following year, a site visit by the Committee on Institutes explored these problems and made several helpful recommendations. Aided by a Consultative Committee and a number of retreats, differences were resolved and wounds healed.
The Hanna Fenichel Nursery School was founded in 1974 through the efforts of Emanuel Lippett and several psychoanalysts and analytically oriented educators. The only psychoanalytically oriented nursery school in the area, it has prospered and enjoys a great demand for its programs. Society/Institute members serve on its board and act as professional consultants.
In 1983 the Institute began its Advanced Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program, one of the first such training programs sponsored by an institute of The American. Over the past decade, more than fifty mental health professionals have participated in the program, which consists of a three-year curriculum of courses together with supervised clinical work.
Although the Child Analytic Training Program has been fully developed since 1982, just last year the Child Analytic Faculty began a two-year Child Analytic Psychotherapy Program for qualified individuals. Today, almost a quarter of the membership of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Society/Institute are graduates of the Psychotherapy Training Program.
Currently, classes are begun in alternate years for the Analytic Training Program and the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program. So far the Analytic Training Program has graduated 37 Clinical Associates, most of whom have remained in the area.
San Diego's program of scientific meetings is now quite vigorous and well attended, having received a substantial boost by opening meetings to psychotherapy students, graduates, and other mental health professionals. A mix of formats, from large open meetings with presented papers or panels to more intimate gatherings with restricted attendance and informal exchanges, seems most attractive to the membership. Moreover, the Society/Institute has for eight years conducted a successful series of annual symposia featuring analysts of national renown and attended by hundreds of professionals from all across the country.
Through the years the Norvelle LaMar Memorial Library has benefited from major donations from the Richard Evans estate and the Ralph Greenson family. Interest in Greenson's work has resulted in the production of two memorial volumes and a monograph series edited by Society/Institute members.
Throughout these four decades, Emanuel Lippett has been a major influence on the development of psychoanalysis In San Diego. Formerly of Los Angeles, he was active there in bringing psychoanalysts out of Nazi Germany and the rest of Europe just prior to World War II and helped develop the first psychoanalytic nursery school in the western United States. Since moving to San Diego in 1960, he has been tireless in serving as a lay board member, advisor, and financial benefactor. In 1974 he was honored by BOPS, and ten years later The American designated him a “Distinguished Friend of Psychoanalysis” in recognition of his many contributions.
The evolution of psychoanalysis in San Diego seems to have been greatly stimulated by the development of the psychotherapy group. By providing a place for colleagues to share in the scientific and social advantages of the Society/Institute, its members have enriched their professional lives without diluting their core psychoanalytic identity or their teaching of psychoanalysis as a distinct and highly valued discipline.