Jacob Arlow's “Comments on the Cleveland Dispute” [TAP 32/3, pages 36–37] are unfortunate and inaccurate, with negative implications about colleagues of ours no longer able to defend themselves. As the only survivors of the group of Cleveland training analysts from the time of the controversy, we wish to see the history accurately recorded.
The issue was not about a “split,” as the officers of the American tried in vain to insist — a concept rejected twice in separate, consecutive meetings of the Board on Professional Standards. The issue instead was a very crucial one for the integrity of institutes of the American associated with medical schools or universities. Douglas Bond, in his capacity as dean of the School of Medicine and chair of the Psychiatry Department, arbitrarily appointed himself chair of the institute's Education Committee and, in defiance of all academic or psychoanalytic customs and procedures, summarily retired Anny Katan and Maurits Katan as training analysts and members of the committee. With the exception of John Flumerfelt, all the members of the Education Committee risked their professional careers to oppose Bond's arbitrary actions. This was not “Katan-Bird vs. Bond,” as portrayed by Arlow; this was Anny Katan, Maurits Katan, Brian Bird, Walter Musta, Justin Krent, William Adams, and Robert Furman working together to oppose an illegal attempt to seize control of an institute.
In the process Bond, at one time or another, terminated the university appointments of every training analyst who had opposed his takeover of the institute. After we did battle with him in the university, he was forced to reinstate in their former positions all those he had dismissed.
Arlow's account confuses the basic issue by comparing the previous situation in Detroit with that in Cleveland. Not only does this attempt to confuse the issue, it also ties the Katans to the Sterbas in an inappropriate way. Arlow obviously has regret for the methods used in Detroit. He seemed to feel that declaring a split and forcing the Cleveland Institute back into supervision was a better solution than the one used in Detroit. He justifies his approach by stating, “Clearly the practice and atmosphere at the Cleveland Institute were antithetical to the accepted principles and standards of psychoanalytic education.” This is an unfair and unfortunate remark. Perhaps Arlow was neither familiar nor comfortable with the lack of rigidity that appropriately characterized a small, young, vigorous analytic community where the highest standards of academic analytic scholarship were combined with the pragmatic application of analytic principles across many fields: medical education, clinical psychiatry, child development research, the training of non-medical child analysts, active involvement with the local day-care community. Although popular and accepted today, these were rather rare activities for an analytic group more than thirty years ago.
Verification of our evaluation can be found in Arlow's failure to convince the board of his viewpoint, our successful defense of our institute from Bond's destructiveness, and the subsequent healthy growth of the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute, which even Arlow has acknowledged.
Arlow confuses the issue further with his reference to a “Case Western Reserve/Cleveland Institute,” a figment of the imagination of Bond and Arlow. There was but one institute here, then and now, duly recognized by the American: The Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute. The implication of improper action by Stein and Bird, putting this remark in juxtaposition to the prior competition between Arlow and Bird for chair of BOPS, is specious and unfortunate. Although there had been conflict within the institute for some time, of which Arlow was aware, these issues were being approached in an appropriate academic fashion when, at a regular meeting of the Educational Committee on July 6, 1967, Bond abruptly announced that he had appointed himself chair of the committee and had retired both the Katans. He then abruptly left the meeting, refusing any discussion of his statement. Arlow was informed on July 10 of what had transpired and in that letter, note was taken of his prior knowledge of the local conflict. The emphasis on the question of the two-thirds rule obscures the repeated rejections by the Board on Professional Standards and the American's Executive Committee and carries with it the implication of parliamentary chicanery on our part. The officers of the American, aided by their soon-to-be-deposed legal counsel, lacked for nothing in terms of parliamentary maneuvers.
The proposal by Arlow (chairman of the Board), Lustman (secretary of the Board), and Brenner (president of the American) that a split existed and that each of the two institutes had to return to training status was defeated by the Board in a long session in the spring in Boston. But Arlow said that as the result of unclear minutes taken of that meeting, the decision had to be reviewed in New York in the fall. Another vote was taken, and again the officers' recommendation was defeated. A presentation by Bond of a new group of training analysts for his new institute was not accepted by the Board, and it was finally confirmed that there was only one institute in Cleveland and that it had full status. The officers' proposals were never “stalemated” but rather were twice defeated by two-thirds majority. A policy of rubber-stamping of the officers' proposal by the Board came to an end.
Particularly unfortunate in Arlow's comments is the twice-given emphasis that “the Katan-Bird group refused to have anyone help, oversee, or look into its educational practices.” This is a blatant untruth. At the meeting of the Board, we stated that following resolution of the matter in the Board, we would form our own advisory group. This we did. The group was composed of senior training analysts from Philadelphia and Baltimore and Edward Kronold of New York, who worked with us for something like two years before all agreed there was no need for their further activity.
Just as Arlow's concept of a “split” was twice rejected by the Board, so was his wish to put the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute under the supervision of the American. We were puzzled by Arlow's comments about the inappropriate involvement of candidates in the struggle. When Gary Waltz presented his paper to a meeting of the society in Cleveland, there were spontaneous and appreciative comments from members of the society who had been candidates at the time of the controversy. They mentioned how well they had been protected from the conflict. Although there may have been isolated exceptions to this protection, since we were analyzing candidates at the time, we know how careful we had been to protect them — so much so that in later years there have been repeated demands for the history of those times and a criticism that we had been too protective.
Arlow's reference to Bond as “dynamic and well connected” and his reference to “realistic considerations of power and prestige” may be connected with his wish to see a split where none existed. Bond was powerful through his
William R. Adams, M.D., has been since 1967 a training and supervising analyst in adult and child psychoanalysis at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute, where he chairs the Curriculum Committee. Robert A. Furman, M.D., was a training and supervising analyst for thirty years at the Cleveland Institute. He is director emeritus of the Hanna Perkins School and the Cleveland Center for Research in Child Development.
control of foundations supporting psychoanalysis. When we once complained to the chair of one of the committees the American sent to mediate the dispute about unfair and biased treatment, we were told, “but you have taken on the most powerful man in American Psychiatry.” The concept of a split was, it would seem, a way to mollify Bond so that it would appear there had been no losers or winners in the resolution of the “dispute.”
There was a great deal to be learned from the episode, foremost being that each institute of the American involved in any way with a university or department of psychiatry should take a careful look at its relationship with such bodies to make certain that its analytic integrity was secure and could not be compromised. A second lesson was that the Board on Professional Standards was perfectly capable of making decisions and forming its own opinions, even if in disagreement with the officers of the American. Perhaps an unnoticed lesson might have been the value of selecting consulting bodies for institutes on the basis of mutual trust and respect, rather than imposing them from above. We were fortunate to have had long-standing relationships with Kronold and with the Baltimore-Washington Institute and the Institute of the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis to call upon at that time.
We are sad that Arlow has felt it necessary at this late hour to revisit the votes of the Board and to try again to change history, impugning in that process the integrity of Stein, Bird, the Katans, actually all of us who were fighting against Bond, and impugning the legitimacy of The Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute.
Certain old transferences never die. They refuse to fade away.