The atmosphere was heady. I can still recall the enthusiasm of those early days. We were a tight little group, and the first class of candidates were waiting for us to get together so they could begin their classes. All of them were fairly advanced in years and in experience; I don't imagine there will be a first class like that ever again. I had been happy to come to Denver, where things seemed free and uncomplicated. Although in time we had our own problems, in the early days no difficulty seemed insurmountable and no way of going at things seemed improbable on the face of it. The meetings of our little curriculum committee on Saturdays, going up to ski at Loveland or some such place, were full of ideas about how to make things better. My memory may falsify things in the glow of reminiscence, but I don't remember any political discussions of how to manage so-and-so or keep so-and-so from getting out of hand or how to keep the bad guys from taking over. I don't think there were any bad guys in the early days. As I recall, the version of psychoanalysis that we taught had a strong developmental cast, and that leaning may have been taken from Spitz.

A spirit of openness also characterized the way we went about appointing training analysts. We wanted to avoid the mysterious “tapping” process, and so the Appointments Committee, of which I was a member for a while, reviewed everyone who might be eligible. We thought of it not just as an honor, or a jump in status, but as work that had to be done. I think the committee did its work very well, inquiring of people what they wanted to do and then taking on the delicate task of inquiring into their intentions, how they felt about what they were doing, and what they felt we ought to be doing next. I recall Joan Fleming meeting with us and saying she probably shouldn't take any more training cases but would like to continue doing supervision. In this way we handled, on a very individual basis, what other institutes either do not handle at all or mishandle simply by having inappropriately uniform policies.

Herbert Schlesinger