The 10,000 Minds Project of the American Psychoanalytic Association, funded in part through a generous grant from the Developing Psychoanalytic Practice and Training Program (DPPT) of the International Psychoanalytical Association, focuses on ways of reaching undergraduate college students and informing them about psychoanalytic ideas (both theory and practice). [See Lisa Damour, “APsaA's Web Resource for College Teachers,” TAP 40/4.]
For a number of years, APsaA has been aware of a few analysts who have found their way onto campuses to teach undergraduates. So we set out on a quest to find out just how they got there, in hopes of guiding other analysts with similar interests. I interviewed five psychoanalysts on how they started teaching undergraduates.
My five interviewees included three physicians and two psychologists who entered undergraduate teaching through various methods: Two returned to graduate school to pursue academic interests; one taught as a graduate student; another worked as a professor before she became a psychoanalyst; and a fifth started as a guest lecturer for a psychology professor.
Jerome Blackman began his career in undergraduate education at Virginia Wesleyan College as an unpaid guest lecturer in abnormal psychology when a psychology professor who knew of his teaching at the medical school called him to teach. About 10 years ago, he received an academic appointment in the psychology department at Virginia Wesleyan. He then contacted one of the professors in psychology at Old Dominion University, whom he knew from community relationships, and asked if he might help her. The result? He has taught abnormal psychology and current psychoanalytic theories at Virginia Wesleyan as well as psychodynamic psychology for first-year Psy.D. students in the Virginia Consortium Program run by Old Dominion University, the College of William and Mary, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Norfolk State University. Moreover, he has lectured to high school, medical, and graduate school students on topics as varied as Freud and modern European history, supportive therapies, narcissism, and psychoanalytic underpinnings of psychopathology.
In addition to his teaching, Blackman has written two excellent resources for undergraduate educators: 101 Defenses: How the Mind Shields Itself, New York, Routledge, 2003, and DCM: Diagnostic and Clinical Manual of Disturbances of Mental Functioning, 2001, which he distributes.
Lynn Friedman began teaching undergraduates while a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She taught numerous courses at Carnegie Mellon University, including abnormal psychology, a seminar in intervention, personality theory, and a clinical research internship. Since 1999, she has given courses on organizational consultation and program evaluation at the Johns Hopkins Business School as well as psychoanalysis in the Johns Hopkins clinical counseling program. (See her informative article, “How the Analyst Can Become a University Lecturer” for suggestions at .
Rosemary Cogan was already teaching full-time in the psychology department at Texas Tech University, which has 27,000 students, in West Texas, when she started commuting to Dallas for training in psychoanalysis. Her teachings at Texas Tech include human sexuality, psychoanalytic theory and research, history of psychology (a graduate-level course), and psychology laboratory. Responding to the need for students to write intensively and the view that psychoanalysis lacked research, she developed a course on psychoanalytic theory and research, which filled up immediately—a sign that students were eager for such a learning opportunity. Cogan has taught the course five times, each time using one of Freud's major case studies about psychopathology (except for Schreber). Students underline and list Freud's hypotheses, and find 90 to 100 testable hypotheses, one of which is chosen for a study with institutional review board approval. The students then review the literature and either collect or use existing data. Twice, the students' work has resulted in publishable positive findings with the students listed as co-authors.
Shoshana Shapiro Adler, Ph.D., a child and adult analyst and psychologist, is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and a faculty member of the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis. She practices in Southeast Denver.
Seven to eight years ago, Mariam Cohen attended an adult education course at a synagogue given by the chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, who suggested to her that she take graduate courses in his department as an M.A. candidate. She began her studies and eventually completed the degree requirements so she might teach in that department. Cohen currently teaches a course on religion and psychology, which the Department of Psychology cross-lists. Her course includes discussions of Freudian, Jungian, and object relations theories of religion. Cohen has published on her opposition to the term “spirituality,” conversion experiences, and the conflicts between Orthodox Judaism and psychoanalysis. She is currently completing course requirements for a Ph.D. in religious studies and plans to do her dissertation on psychological changes that occur in the course of conversion to Judaism.
Before Eric Nuetzel became an analyst, he was an actor, producer, and director at the college, community, and professional theater level. To understand human motivation, he took psychology courses and then became a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. He found many parallels between the rehearsal process and the consulting room, especially in dealing with transference-countertransference reactions between the actors and directors.
Years after becoming an analyst, he had occasion to lunch with a newly introduced friend, the chair of the Performing Arts Department at Washington University in St. Louis, who suggested that Nuetzel become a graduate student in his department in order to pursue his longstanding interests in the theater. After seeing the quality of Nuetzel's work, Washington University decided to waive his tuition. Nuetzel managed his graduate studies by pacing his productions—one production a year over the course of five years. It was “good for my soul even though stressful for my family,” Nuetzel remarked. Upon receiving his master's degree in drama, Nuetzel was invited to teach. His courses included psychoanalysis and tragic drama as well as film and psychoanalysis.
For more details about teaching analytic concepts to undergraduates, please see the 10,000 Minds Project Web site developed by Lisa Damour and Heather Davidson, and click on Career Opportunities (on the left side).