When I came to California in 1945 there had been nearly a decade of lively professional activity among analysts in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (LAPSI) was founded the following year. After considerable conflict over the issue of lay analysis, the decision was made that LAPSI would be a purely medical institute. Although internal dissidence over other matters led to a split in the original group, the new group, now called the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute (SCPI), was also limited to medical practitioners. Nevertheless, there were in both institutes those who did not believe in exclusionary policies, and they were willing to share their knowledge with some of us from other professions who were eager to absorb it.
Since Otto Fenichel was then my bible, I eagerly sat at his feet at every opportunity. I also participated in ongoing workshops with Frances Deri and other early analysts who made themselves available. It was clear, however, that those of us from disciplines other than medicine would be excluded in any future official training programs. Although several of us were analyzed by training analysts of the then-new LAPSI and received supervision from them, we could not aspire to be members. Some of us developed our own study groups; these gradually came under the auspices of the Los Angeles County Psychological Association. We called ourselves the Los Angeles Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology and elected Ernest Lawrence our first president. We also passed on knowledge of analytic theory to others, as many of us assumed positions in schools of social work and departments of psychology.
In 1970 we incorporated as the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies (LAISPS). A motley group we were. Some members had full institute training behind them, such as Hedda Bolgar, who had four years with the Chicago Institute but who as a psychologist was not welcome in The American. Joel Shor had had two years in the New York Psychoanalytic when it suspended nonmedical candidates, at which point he helped Theodor Reik develop the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP), perhaps the first institute in the U.S. open to nonmedical candidates. One of our founders, Charles Ansell, studied there. Elaine Caruth, Clifton Caruth, Ernest Lawrence, Norman Oberman, Martin Reiser, and I had all obtained our professional degrees in a period in history when psychoanalytic theories were still being taught in graduate schools. Each of us had had an intense investment in psychoanalytic thinking and was powerfully motivated to overcome obstacles to our further education. We had no choice but to obtain training the bootleg way, and so we sought “proper” analysis and supervision and worked in psychoanalytically oriented hospitals, agencies, and clinics. We were all active in the branches of our professional associations that embraced psychoanalysis.
Drawn together by these mutual interests, we embarked on designing and implementing our training program and took applications from psychologists, clinical social workers, psychiatric nurses, and some marriage, family, and child counselors. Membership grew when Rudolf Ekstein (trained at the Vienna Institute) and later David Brunswick, Milton Horowitz, and Marshall Wheeler joined us. When Lars Lofgren (from the Swedish Institute) and Ira Frank (from LAPSI) became members, LAISPS became truly multidisciplinary. Subsequently other members were added, both those attracted from elsewhere and, in time, our own graduates. At present we have seventy members and thirty-seven candidates, clinical associates, and seniors.
Because of the great variety in our backgrounds we represented diverse schools of thought; as a result, LAISPS was never identified with a particular point of view. We saw value in the eclectic, and that attitude has persisted over the years, leading to our bringing in teachers from other institutes to offer ways of thinking not well represented among us. We kept up an interest in the community in which we were functioning, many of us continuing to teach and consult in other settings. For some years we have had a lively extension program, imparting to fellow professionals psychoanalytic theories valuable to them in their work at a time in history when such ideas are rarely taught in universities.
We in LAISPS were active participants in the suit brought by Bryant Welch et al. against the American Psychoanalytic Association when Ernest Lawrence was president of Division 39. Then president of LAISPS, I testified for a full day in March 1988, going to a well-appointed law office downtown with our attorney to be deposed by counsel for The American. We all know the outcome of that suit: it was settled out of court. That opened the doors to our applying for membership in the IPA. We did so as soon as possible, and in 1991, at the IPA congress in Buenos Aires, we became a provisional society. Last summer in San Francisco, we became a full component society.
The Psychoanalytic Center of California had a somewhat different and more turbulent birth. In the 1960s a group of analysts, especially from LAPSI, became interested in Kleinian theory and had brought in from England as guest lecturers many of its leading exponents. By the 1970s there was enormous dissension because of LAPSI's intolerance of the object relations point of view. This rejection was manifested in the nonpromotion of those who studied with Bion and Mason (who had moved to Los Angeles in 1968) to training analyst status. Even those holding such positions were seeking legal counsel in an effort to retain them. During the late 1970s many “disenfranchised” Kleinians were clustering in private study groups at the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center and the California Graduate Institute (CGI). By now among them were analysts from the Southern California Society as well. James Gooch, who would become founding president of PCC, began to meet at CGI with a group of students who expressed dissatisfaction with aspects of their program; eventually they constituted the driving force for PCC's establishment. In the meantime, Gooch became chair of CGI's Department of Psychoanalysis and worked with students on issues related to their desire to become psychoanalysts — finding control cases, planning scientific meetings, and finding programs of continuing education.
In 1984 Gooch submitted articles of incorporation to the state, and PCC became a formal entity. Although the majority of the founders were from medical backgrounds, they believed in lay analysis; accordingly, they sought and obtained from the Board of Medical Quality Assurance approval of a training program for research psychoanalysts. A large conference,
Jean B. Sanville, Ph.D., one of the founders of LAISPS, is a training and supervising analyst there.
“Transformations in Psychoanalysis,” was held in March 1985 and served to launch the new institute in the community. Gradually it became evident to both CGI and PCC that a separation between them was necessary, and most of the students from CGI shifted to PCC when it opened for classes in 1987. At that point Greg Gorski, James Grotstein, Albert Mason, Chris Minnick, Michael Paul, Fred Vaquer, and Murray Weider joined the new institute, reinforcing its Kleinian emphasis. Although the majority of psychoanalysts in PCC were committed to an ecumenical program — believing that students should be introduced to various schools of thought — a minority wanted it to be designated a Kleinian institute, and this is how it is regarded today in the professional community.
When the IPA congress in Montreal voted to accept applications from groups with nonmedical members, PCC applied, but the IPA had not yet worked out how new groups would be examined in order to qualify. In February 1989, PCC had its first site visit; later that year, at the Rome congress, it was made a provisional society. Four years later, in Amsterdam, it became a full member. Today PCC has forty-three members, most of whom have retained their original affiliations as well, and fifty-seven candidates.
Substantial interchange between LAISPS and PCC is evolving, with some members of one institute teaching in the other; public lectures often feature a presenter from one institute and a discussant from the other. Recently the two IPA groups cosponsored a lecture by Peter Fonagy from London.
Together with the Freudian Society and the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) in New York, these two West Coast institutes formed the Coalition of Independent IPA Societies, more recently renamed the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies in the U.S. (IPS), with a copresident on each coast. A steering committee has met at regular intervals in New York and between meetings has conducted phone conferences. When the IPA voted to establish a House of Delegates with nine representatives elected from each of three regions, it was clear that The American could no longer be the only North American voice. Another steering committee was constituted, with The American joining the four new IPS societies and the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society to form NAIPAG (North American IPA Groups). It was negotiated that as the largest group The American would have five delegates; the IPS and the Canadian Society would have two each. The nine delegates would then select one of their own to represent the North American region in the Executive Council. It was agreed that this seat would rotate among the three members of NAIPAG, with The American going first, the Canadians second, and finally IPS. We drew straws to see which of the two IPS groups on each coast would send the first delegates, and Norbert Freedman from IPTAR and myself representing LAISPS were chosen. Next time it will be the turn of the Freudian Society and PCC. Meanwhile the IPS incorporated itself, implementing bylaws last June 1 and holding elections.
The IPS participated with The American in planning the San Francisco IPA congress. It was the IPS that presented the Film and Psychoanalysis events there and the post-Congress on that topic in Los Angeles. Ongoing business will include working out further the relations between our societies and The American. A meeting open to all IPS members will be held some time this year, probably close to the date of the Division 39 conference. Since the European and Latin American clinical conferences, held in years falling between IPA congresses, are now deemed to involve NAIPAG, a member of the Freudian Society, Abby Adams-Silvan, has worked on the committee planning this year's European conference; similarly, I worked on the committee planning the Latin American conference held in Puerto Vallarta in February.
For all of us in the psychoanalytic field, a sort of honeymoon has prevailed. The majority of IPS analysts see no reason at present to join The American, for we believe there is value in several organizations representing our discipline. We have together appointed a joint committee to determine our response to the postponement of the exhibit of the Freud archives by the Library of Congress. We will continue to work closely with the committee and with the Canadian Society to promote the welfare of psychoanalysis in North America, and indeed in the world.
It is a time of crisis in our field, to the extent that television commentator Phyllis Thereau could refer to this period in contemporary psychoanalysis as the post-Freudian era. The demand for psychoanalysis has definitely fallen off, in part because of the increasing reluctance of prospective analysands to spend the time and money required to enter analysis, and in part because a certain disillusion is prevalent in today's culture about the value of psychoanalysis as against that of short-term therapies. Even when institutes offer low-cost analysis conducted by their candidates, few takers are found. Managed care presents another threat. Even if the owners of this burgeoning industry were open to psychoanalysis as a method of treatment, their reporting and review procedures violate the confidentiality without which our approach is impossible.
This, then, is an era marked by diminished enrollment in most of our institutes and by reports from most analysts that today they are doing more psychotherapy than analysis. Yet there is evidence that mental health professionals still find psychoanalysis the most interesting game in town. When training becomes available to those once deprived of it — or perhaps who feel deprived because of the potential time and expense they might incur were they to enroll in accepted IPA institutes — they flock to obtain it.
This brings me to reflect on the impact, on all of the psychoanalytic societies in Southern California, of the formation of the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP). At times referred to as the self psychology institute because many of its founders were of that persuasion, ICP was founded with a sort of declaration of independence that it would never allow an outside organization (such as the IPA) to determine its policies and procedures. Liberalizing requirements around a number of what the more conservative among us would call standards, it began to admit candidates who had been (or were being) analyzed by analysts outside their institute, and to credit experience toward certification in this new school. Of course, it attracted candidates in record numbers, predominantly social workers and psychologists, at a time when applications to all the other institutes were declining. Indeed, ICP's active members include many from the other institutes — more, I think from the older medical ones than from either LAISPS or PCC. Among the seventy-nine members listed are fifty-one M.D.s. Significantly, of ICP's eighty-six candidates only twelve hold medical degrees. Here we discern something of an old pattern — nonmedical people being trained mostly by M.D.s — and something of a new one, in that these M.D.s must no longer conduct such training clandestinely. As I write, I learn that ICP will be among the founding institutes of the new Independent Association for Psychoanalysis, together with the Colorado Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, and the William Alanson White Institute in New York City. This new educational organization is being formed on the principle of the scientific and organizational autonomy of its member institutes, and new groups may be admitted by a simple majority vote of current members.
It would seem that organizational life, like that of individuals, demonstrates a pattern of alternating splittings and joinings. Just before the San Francisco congress, a group of psychoanalysts representing the four IPA societies in Los Angeles convened to discuss the desirability of combining our separate resources and fostering cooperation and collaboration. Early in the fall of 1995 we formed the Federation of IPA Societies in Southern California (FIPAS), having obtained the enthusiastic support of the boards of the two societies in The American and the two in IPS. Our common aim is to convey the value of psychoanalysis and its broader applications to the mental health community and to the Los Angeles community at large. The mission statement, drawn up by Benjamin Kilbome, noted the
potential role of psychoanalysis in shaping concepts and values central to contemporary culture, especially those concerning health and welfare, education, and the political scene. The planning group has met regularly to explore the feasibility of various approaches to realizing these broad goals, and enthusiasm is high.
At a weekend event on January 12 and 13, the birth of FIPAS was announced to the professional community. Beginning with a Friday night ceremonial banquet well attended by members of all four IPA societies, the event moved to a lecture on Saturday by Andre Haynal, scientific supervising editor of the Freud-Ferenczi correspondence. His topic, “Sandor Ferenczi and Psychoanalytic Technique,” evoked a rich discussion of the historical antecedents to present tensions between adherents of divergent theories and techniques, as well as many suggestions of fruitful ways for the member groups in FIPAS to collaborate.
If present trends continue, there will in the future be a smaller proportion of medically trained analysts in the field. What that will mean for the profession we can only guess. For those of us who are interested in research, there is fascinating data to study. Our theories of individual development hold that the vicissitudes of birth and early life can determine later patterns. We may have here an opportunity to learn more about how the beginnings of analytic societies exert an influence on their later histories and how those societies in turn affect one other and psychoanalysis as a discipline.
Much of the content of this paper was part of the panel, “History of Psychoanalysis on the West Coast,” presented at the IPA congress in San Francisco on August 4, 1995. I thank Ernest Lawrence and Hedda Bolgar for fortifying my memory of LAISPS's beginnings and James Gooch and Diana Miller for providing detailed information on the early history of PCC.