Ennis: How did you initially get into psychoanalysis, Martin?
Stein: Well, Jerry, in medical school I had no particular interest in psychiatry. I originally wanted to do medicine or pediatrics, but I became interested in the psychosomatic conditions so frequently encountered in my residency. So I trained in neuropsychiatry, including a period at Bellevue, mostly in organic conditions. When I went into the army before Pearl Harbor, I knew more neurology than psychiatry.
Ennis: I had the impression that, as much of a disruption in the lives of young doctors and as horrible as war is, World War II service was for many young psychiatrists an exciting time—an important learning experience and an important stimulus for interest in psychoanalysis.
Stein: Yes, by and large it was for me an important time. I was in England, North Africa, and Italy, and I met a lot of interesting people, many of them more experienced psychiatrists. I made some lasting friendships, and I was influenced by the analysts I met — including Alfred Ludwig of Boston — so when I got back to the States, I applied for analytic training at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
Ennis: That was the first postwar class, a time when analysis was burgeoning and full of some unrealistic—American?—expectations.
Stein: Yes, psychoanalysis was flourishing scientifically but still had a number of faddish aspects that attracted some people who, it turned out, weren't interested in real analysis. Thirty-five of us were in that class, and only about half graduated, a group that included Victor Rosen, Bernie Brodsky, Nathan Root, and Earl Saxe, among others.
Ennis: What was it like to be a candidate after World War II?
Stein: Well, first, fresh out of the army in 1946, I began a private practice, which wasn't difficult in those days. Then I applied for training. As I was about to be interviewed for admission, I realized that there was something I was reluctant to admit to those august beings who were to decide my fate. My secret was that I was possessed of a romantic temperament, and was especially prone to taking myths seriously about all sorts of things, especially psychoanalytic education. I suspected that were I to reveal this defect in my character, I'd be rejected out of hand! I don't know if my interviewers detected it; if they did, they must have assumed that a thoroughgoing personal analysis would knock all such nonsense out of my head. They were at least partially wrong.
I had heard vague rumors about an Education Committee. I found myself imagining it to be a cross between the Spanish Inquisition and the gods of Olympus. I couldn't maintain the first image for very long, since they spoke no Spanish. Many of them were women. And, as I observed them from a respectful distance, they didn't seem so malignant. I was, however, cautious about my conversation in the Institute elevator and at the large cocktail parties so common then. The most harmless joking, after all, might be judged heretical — you never know! — but I got over that fantasy soon enough. Analysis helped. But I still watch my words in the elevator.
My belief in the gods of Olympus was not so easy to resolve. Jack Arlow has written eloquently about the mythology surrounding psychoanalytic education and how it affects the process of becoming an analyst. It certainly affected mine — at least until my own analysis created the hard-headed realist I have become. When I was a candidate, my attitudes were dominated by the fantasy that my teachers were godlike in their dignity and power. I saw the chairman (or was it the chairwoman?) of the Education Committee as quite prepared to hurl a thunderbolt at some offending candidate and expel the victim from Paradise, all because of some minor indiscretion, like mentioning Karen Horney in class. I did have some sense of reality, fortunately, and comforted myself with the thought that the immortals were not likely to have the time to waste on such trivialities.
Ennis: And then later, as a member of the Elect after graduation?
Stein: Eventually I became a demigod, a training analyst, and soon afterward was offered the chance to become an immortal, that is, to run for the Education Committee itself. When I was—to my surprise, even consternation — actually elected, I panicked. I have always had a fear of high places, a fear not entirely removed by my otherwise excellent analysis.
When, with fear and trepidation, I joined the committee, my Olympian fantasies were confirmed, although not quite in the way I had anticipated. I discovered that my colleagues acted very much like Homer's gods: all were capable of harboring prejudices, bickering over issues, playing favorites, bearing grudges, and in many other ways demonstrating the human failings the Greeks ascribed to their gods. In defense, I must add that we tried, not altogether successfully, to do our best for the candidates, to be as fair as we could in spite of our all-too-human limitations.
It has been said that we stand on the shoulders of giants, a reference not only to Freud, but to a group of thoughtful, original thinkers of a generation after him, many of whom were our teachers, and many who knew Freud. They were, as a group, more colorful and original, more idiosyncratic, for better or worse, than we seem to be. Our field has become codified and institutionalized, with all the advantages and disadvantages that such a development brings. We may function better, for example, as clinical analysts if only because of the advantages afforded us by the members of that generation. And it is only fair to say that the New York Institute has produced, since then, a more rational curriculum and a group of excellent teachers, less colorful but not necessarily less effective than our predecessors — less godlike, too.
Ennis: Who were some of those “gods”?
Stein: To mention only a few who left a lasting impression during my psychoanalytic youth, there was Heinz Hartmann in the role of Zeus (if you can stand such an extended metaphor). He was an imposing figure and a profound thinker who, in his courtly fashion, was capable on rare occasions of hurling intellectual thunderbolts, though only at contemporaries, never at us younger folk, toward whom he was invariably kind. He was, to continue the metaphor, Delphic in his utterances. He dealt with the most abstract levels of metapsychology, pronounced from the navel of the psychoanalytic world—the New York Institute, of course. Except for the landscape, we could feel we were at Delphi. His writing, while often very demanding, could be brilliantly clear. Fortunately, he had priestly interpreters in Ernst Kris and Rudolf Loewenstein. They were more than messengers, however, being brilliant thinkers in their own right, and capable of writing and speaking with a clarity that made them superb teachers. They made up the triumvirate of Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein—it has a poetic sound, don't you think? — that produced so much valuable literature and inspired other highly creative group efforts such as those of Arlow, Brenner, Beres, and Wangh, and the Kris Study Groups. The list would also include Edith Jacobson, Margaret Mahler, the Eisslers, Robert Bak, Marianne Kris, Annie Reich, Hermann Nunberg, Otto Isakower, Edward Kronold, and many others who left their mark as well-defined characters as well as inspiring teachers.
“In today's social and intellectual climate, analysis is not now the discipline chosen by ambitious psychiatrists… . those who do devote themselves to the study and practice of analysis, and accept the sacrifices that the effort entails, do so out of an inner conviction that that is what they must do, that they would be uninspired or even bored with any discipline that delved less deeply into the human psyche. I am optimistic enough, romantic if you wish, to suppose that this ensures the future development of our field… .”
Ennis: What else did you do after chairing the Board?
Stein: I became chair of yet another study group on training analysis. The other members were Brian Bird, Victor Calef, Manuel Furer, and Francis McLaughlin. We were very congenial and learned a good deal in a series of group meetings with graduates and faculty members. They learned a great deal as well. We were never able, unfortunately, to produce a final report for general publication, but our findings were extensively reported to COPE and to the Board, where they are on record.
Ennis: Summing up, Martin, what could you say about psychoanalysis from the vantage point of a lifetime as an analyst?
Stein: This is after all, an exercise in nostalgia, and I've warned you that it's been subject to romantic distortion. I've enjoyed it enormously and found it fascinating and personally very rewarding. Analysis was, in the 1950s, a favorite subject of conversation among the intellectuals and yuppies of the period. It was in danger of becoming a fad, which, while it made for a ready supply of patients, offered its own set of problems. I'm sorry that it has become such a difficult profession in terms of getting patients, and I feel great sympathy for the younger people who are interested and who are encountering such difficulties. I feel that the rejection of psychoanalysis, both professionally and, to some extent, ideologically, is a reflection of our current culture — the need for quick results and government and insurance company interference and intrusions in confidentiality and personal life.
Ennis: And reduction of constraints making culturally sanctioned apparent circumvention of conflict easier.
Stein: That has a lot to do with it. I also feel that psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic thinking have entered into our intellectual and emotional life in ways that can never be undone. You can say whether you want to be analyzed or not, but you can't dismiss Freud's work. However, we no longer have classes of thirty-five. In today's social and intellectual climate, analysis is not now the discipline chosen by ambitious psychiatrists. My observation is that those who do devote themselves to the study and practice of analysis, and accept the sacrifices that the effort entails, do so out of an inner conviction that that is what they must do, that they would be uninspired or even bored with any discipline that delved less deeply into the human psyche. I am optimistic enough, romantic if you wish, to suppose that this ensures the future development of our field and its continuance as a vital element in unraveling the mysteries of human nature.
Among the Americans, to mention only a few, were Bertram Lewin, who combined the gifts of a poetic imagination with a deep insight into states of consciousness and the dream, and Phyllis Greenacre, who in superb clinical reports conveyed a profound understanding of patients and made lasting contributions to our psychoanalytic formulations about speech, character, and child development. There were also Lawrence Kubie, who did much to popularize psychoanalysis among the general public, and Marian Kenworthy, who made psychoanalysis an essential part of the training of social workers. Leo Stone is close to my own generation. Most of you know him and have learned from him about the “broadening scope” of psychoanalysis.
Ennis: You did a lot of work for The American?
Stein: In the late fifties I became a member of, and later on chaired, the Membership Committee of the Board on Professional Standards. It functioned the way the Certification Committee does today, passing on applications for membership. There was only one class of membership, active, which would correspond today to certified (aside from honorary and life members). We often had to pass on fifty or sixty applications at a time. Every member of the committee read every application and discussed them at an all-day meeting twice a year. We almost always achieved a consensus. There were seldom important disagreements about decisions, and, when there was disagreement, we would ask the applicant to discuss his work with the members of the committee. These discussions almost always resulted in favorable decisions. It was a marvelous clinical and educational experience for us, more than enough to make us feel that the work was worthwhile. Several members of that committee became very dear friends.
Ennis: Did you feel that the system worked well, that it was fair to the applicants?
Stein: We felt it was fair. Whether the relatively few who were deferred would agree is another matter. I don't think we deferred very many. I'm sure we made a few mistakes, in both directions, but I have the fond belief that it worked as fairly and as effectively in maintaining standards as the later, more codified procedures for evaluating applicants for certification did. I was to some extent responsible for encouraging more formal requirements. In retrospect, I suppose that was inevitable, considering the temper of the times and the increasing size and complexity of the organization. I'm not sure it is an improvement.
Ennis: How do you account for that?
Stein: There was a much better choice of psychoanalytic cases, for one thing. There were fewer institutes, and the association was smaller, as were the Board and Council. There was much less standardization of the length of analysis, termination, and the like. The committee tried to determine whether the applicants understood analysis and were practicing it. There were very few fixed standards, too, about length of supervision, number of cases, and so on. The process sounds very personal, and even a bit chaotic, but it seemed to work at least as well as the present, highly codified system.
Ennis: You were later chair of BOPS. What was that like?
Stein: I became chair in 1963 for three years, a time when things were at their most unstable in the association. Being chair involved me in every aspect of psychoanalytic education, a circumstance that made up for the burdens of administration. Perhaps the most difficult task was that of making appointments to the various committees of the Board. It gave me a sense of power, with all the dangers that implies. It also took an inordinate amount of time and energy; consequently, my clinical work suffered. Fortunately, I could share the burdens and responsibilities with the secretary of the Board, my dear friend Brian Bird. He did much to help me avoid serious errors of judgment. I made many friends and, inevitably, a few enemies in some of the serious controversies of those years.