The following letter appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association, December 14, 1994, Vol. 272, p. 1721, and is published by permission. References are omitted. Copyright © 1994, American Medical Association.
Dr. Somerfeld-Ziskind begins a recent review of a book on “biological psychiatry” with the gratuitous sentence: “Now that psychoanalysis is on the wane, inevitably earlier opinions in psychiatry will resurface.” While it may be comforting to some to repeat the myth that psychoanalysis is in some sort of decline, the facts about psychoanalysis support exactly the opposite conclusion.
In the United States, the membership of the American Psychoanalytic Association has gone from 1,880 in 1974, to 2,828 in 1984, to 3,050 in 1994 (oral communication, American Psychoanalytic Association, August 1994). Most of these members are physicians. In addition, the membership of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, the section concerned with clinical psychoanalysis, has risen from 1,950 in 1984 to 3,801 in 1994 (oral communication, American Psychological Association, August 1994).
While surveys over these years have shown a slight decline in the number of psychoanalytic patients in each practice (due to the supply of psychoanalysts rising faster than the demand for psychoanalysis), the total number of U.S. patients in analysis is probably at an historic high.
Outside the United States, the growth of psychoanalysis has been substantial. The International Psychoanalytical Association has recorded an increase in membership from 5,800 in 1984 to 8,721 in 1994 (oral communication, International Psychoanalytical Association, August 1994). In particular, there has been growth of the profession throughout Latin America, from 1,400 in 1948 to 2,200 in 1994, a 57 percent increase. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to assert that there are now more patients in psychoanalytic treatment worldwide than at any other time in history.
In countries in which psychoanalysis has been forbidden by totalitarian governments, we have seen a great deal of interest in psychoanalytic training as soon as the repressive regime was overthrown. There are now eleven psychoanalytic training institutes in Germany, all established since the end of World War II. More recently, in 1990, a group of analysts from the United States was invited to Moscow to deliver a series of lectures, and Russian psychiatrists are now studying psychoanalysis in the United States.
Thus, Somerfeld-Ziskind has put forth an inaccurate and myopic view of the current status of psychoanalysis.
Norman A. Clemens, M.D.
Cleveland
Paul W. Mosher, M.D.
Albany