Psychoanalysis in Wisconsin can be dated to the end of World War II, when three Milwaukee doctors—Saul Pollack, John Usow, and Samuel Black—were accepted for training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. The first two were psychiatrists; the third, a general practitioner who had served as a flight surgeon, was now returning to a psychiatric residency. Candidates then were accepted at Chicago while in residency.
Michael Kasik, then department head at the County Mental Hospital, permitted the three to make frequent trips to Chicago for analysis, classwork, and supervision. He may not have known what he was getting into, but he accepted their time away with good grace. The three of us bought railroad tickets by the hundreds, and as I look back I wonder how we did it. We must have wanted the training very much. My analysis started in 1946, a month after I returned from Italy.
After a couple of years, Usow left for Los Angeles, where he completed his training. George Martin then came from Philadelphia to replace him. The next arrival was Edward Sheehan, who unfortunately died of a heart attack while sitting in his chair, a patient on the couch. The rest of us took on those of his patients who wanted to continue. Despite our full schedules and waiting lists, we felt an obligation.
In those years, psychoanalysis was the “thing to do” in psychiatry, and many of our local colleagues applied to Chicago for training. Only two were accepted, Jack Coheen and Raymond Headlee. Those who were rejected tended to become hostile toward psychoanalysis. Much later, Gene Turrell, who became head of the County Mental Health Department and Milwaukee Sanitarium, was accepted at Chicago but never finished. He came to Milwaukee with two assistants, and all three were analyzed. While they were here, psychoanalysis flourished, both clinically and in residency training at the County Mental Hospital, the Sanitarium (now Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital), and the local VA hospital. Martin, Headlee, Coheen, and I worked with residents for many years, and our efforts moved local psychiatry toward a more dynamic point of view.
During this time we all became active in the local psychiatric societies. We became officers, planned programs, and brought in psychoanalysts as speakers. The psychiatrists seemed to like what we were doing. For many years I conducted a Saturday morning seminar at the Sanitarium for young psychiatrists who requested it.
In the early forties a private organization provided supervision for local social service agencies. A Chicago analyst provided the service then, but when I started practice I took over. After several years, many of the social workers became pretty good therapists. Then the person in charge retired, and the situation changed, as nonanalyst psychiatrists became supervisors. The agencies found it financially more beneficial to switch to “short-term therapy” and group, and gradually I gave up my work with social workers.
In the fifties several psychiatrists and general practitioners in the area formed a psychoanalytic group to discuss theory that might help physicians work better with their patients. This later evolved into a discussion group for local analysts and eventually, with the addition of new analysts, into the Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Society.