Tradition and innovation in Psychoanalytic Education

Clark Conference on Psychoanalytic Training for Psychologists

Murray Meisels, Ester R. Shapiro, Murray Meisels, Ester R. Shapiro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134746972
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Relations interpersonnelles en psychologie

This book, a record of the Clark Conference sponsored by the APA, consists of a series of papers on psychoanalytic education. The book is dedicated to the memory of Helen Block Lewis, who realized the necessity for detailed re-examination and further development of all ideas in psychoanalysis.

1Introduction: The Colorful Background of the Clark Conference

Murray Meisels

BACKGROUND

Reuben Fine launched the Division of Psychoanalysis in 1978: Signatures were collected at the 1978 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA), whose Council approved the petition at the 1979 annual meeting. It was one of those developments that led some to wondering why it took so long for one of the earliest psychologies to organize itself in APA. Indeed, 10 years before, at another APA annual meeting, several psychologist-psychoanalysts did call a meeting to organize a Division, but I've heard that there was anxiety that psychologists would start forming training Institutes if there were a psychoanalytic division—apparently, the idea of psychologists training themselves was not regarded as desirable—and the result of that 1968 convening was a compromise formation called Psychologists Interested in the Study of Psychoanalysis (PISP), a research group. The 1968 “anxiety” that psychologists would form training Institutes if there was a psychoanalytic Division was a real one, because this is precisely what happened once the Division of Psychoanalysis was established a decade later.

Once formed, the main political antagonism that emerged within the Division represented an adumbration of the 1968 anxiety, since on one pole there was a group that identified with the standards of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) and the American Psychoanalytic Association (the American), while the other pole was comprised first of a group that considered it premature to define psychoanalytic praxis and, later, of the emerging local chapters.

Some of the original political antagonism originated in New York City, since approximately 55% of the Division membership came from either more traditional or less traditional New York area Institutes, which apparently had never interacted although they now had representatives sitting at Divisional Board meetings. The traditional group organized itself first. Essentially it comprised the entire membership of the early Qualifications Committee and then formed itself as the Division's first section, the Section of Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Practitioners (Section I). Section I required that psychoanalysis consist of at least three sessions per week, and that therapy of any less frequency be considered psychoanalytic psychotherapy. While this was not as high as the four- or five-weekly frequencies advocated by the IPA and the American, it was enough to antagonize the less traditional groups. The less traditional group organized itself more slowly, as did the local chapters: The Section of Local Chapters (Section IV) was formed in 1985, and the Psychologist-Psychoanalyst Forum (Section V) in 1986.

The interval after the emergence of Section I and before the emergence of Sections IV and V was a colorful period, filled as it was with intense political and emotional strife, parochialism, and some painful, even horrid, Board meetings. The political strife was between Section I and (eventual) Section V, the parochialism was the persistent and remarkable obliviousness of many New Yorkers to psychologist's needs in the rest of the United States, and Division board meetings erupted into periodic political infighting as now one issue, now another, was perceived as the latest battleground on which the issue of standards was being fought. Some of the battlegrounds entailed meaningful content, such as battles over the composition of the ABPP committee or about whether the Division should sponsor this Clark Conference, but other of the battles were quite distant from the issues, such as the battle over who is the proper Section I representative, or whether section membership should be included in a membership directory. At this point, I should like to sketch the three positions.

The Section I Position

Although the Division was founded as an interest group and remains open to any APA member, within months of its founding efforts were under way to attempt to credential psychologist-psychoanalysts. Within a year, Meisels and Hyman (1980) wrote a proposal to that effect, a symposium on the subject was held at the APA annual meeting in Montreal, and the Qualifications Committee was appointed. By 1982 the Division board had approved the recommendations of the Qualifications Committee, so that the thrice-weekly standard is the Division's definition of qualification. Section I then used the Division's standards as a membership requirement: This requirement, that only psychologists who met the Division's standards for qualification in psychoanalysis could join Section I, led to the widespread perception—widespread even in the leadership of Section I—that Section I was engaging in unofficial credentialing. However, Section I had acted strictly within APA and Division rules.

The Section I position, broadly, was: The field of psychoanalysis has defined standards of practice which entail a high frequency of contact; to play a role in the international psychoanalytic community it is necessary for the Division to maintain these standards: and that, practically speaking, the thrice-weekly standard was itself a compromise, so that any effort to reduce frequency requirements further—or to impose a concept such as “equivalency”—must be fought with alacrity and determination. These were fiercely held convictions. These convictions, interestingly, did not have an ideological cast: Section I admitted psychologists of all theoretical stripes, and also admitted psychologists who were not trained in Institutes, colleagues who had engaged in “bootlegged” or, better, self-directed, training. It was the frequency/intensity dimension that Section I fiercely defended, not a particular theory.

The Section V Position

It was apparently the Division's official establishment of Section I that galvanized the (future) Section V people into organization and action. Hitherto, they had played a minor role, and the major Division initiatives had derived from Section I (these were the agreement on standards for qualification, the establishment of the Division's first section, and the possibility of ABPP credentialing). Now, however, New Yorkers whose Institutes accepted some twice-weekly treatments became concerned since they perceived that even if Section 1 were not engaging in official credentialing (since it gave no credential but was, by APA rules, a membership organization), it was certainly doing unofficial credentialing (since so many in the Division so viewed it). Many New Yorkers were concerned that graduates of their Institutes would not be admitted to Section 1, and they were joined by some non-New Yorkers who also demanded grandparenting or equivalency of training. This, Section I was unwilling to do. It must be borne in mind that this was 2 or 3 years before the Division reached the organizational resolution of establishing another section for these less traditional psychologist-psychoanalysts, and that, at the time, there was widespread agreement—or a wish—that the Division should have a standard of psychoanalytic qualification that is acceptable to all.

In any event, in 1982-1986, the result was internecine warfare. The future Section V people were demanding a hearing, or calling for the decertification of Section I, and Section I felt under severe attack, and devoted enormous energy to the struggle. The Division board itself was obsessed with this conflict, which was the fundamental agenda item of several board meetings; and the issue was indeed the focus of conflict at board meetings, and derivatives of the conflict attached themselves to numerous tangential issues, and the two ideologies would have at each other again and again. There was much unhappiness. Some, including this writer, had fears that the Division might split.

The Local Chapters

This intense emotional issue of standards, which had so preoccupied the Division board and the Section I board for years, was almost irrelevant to non-New Yorkers. As a Michiganian who championed local chapter formation, I vividly recall many meetings of the Division board and the Section I board at which I broached the topic of encouraging local chapter development, only to find that the reactions ranged from indifference to minor interest, and that the issue quickly turned back again to the issue of standards. The New York parochialism which focused such intense emotion on the issue of standards led to the benign neglect of the rest of the country.

The central, focal emotional issue for psychologists outside of greater New York City was the lack of training opportunities because of the successful exclusionary policy of the American. Except for the many Institutes in New York City and the one in Los Angeles, psychoanalytically minded psychologists in the remainder of the United States were virtually unable to train in psychoanalysis unless the local Institute of the American gave them permission (in which case they had to undergo the odious waiver procedure). It has long seemed to me that the central success of U. S. psychiatrist-psychoanalysts was in establishing a national organization, the American, and that the central difficulty for psychologists was the lack of a central organization. Once Division 39 came into existance, once psychologists had their national organization, they immediately began to form local societies, exactly as had been “feared” in 1968.

THE SHIFT FROM “STANDARDS” TO LOCAL CHAPTERS

Before 1979 the American was the major national psychoanalytic organization, with a network of local units throughout the country, and psychologists had neither a national organization nor a network: There were areas of the country where psychoanalytically minded psychologists had literally never seen a psychologist who was a psychoanalyst. Once the Division was launched, a network of local chapters began to emerge. By 1981, a Committee on Local Chapters was established, chaired by an innovative Chicagoan, Oliver J. B. Kerner. He and I worked together to propose that the Division establish a national program to train psychologists in the hinterlands (Meisels & Kerner, 1982)—a proposal which never did materialize—and we also recommend that the Division establish a Foundation for Psychoanalytic Education and Research. The Foundation did materialize, but to date has garnered money only with great difficulty, and not in amounts large enough to impact on local training programs.

By late 1984, the Division's major agenda had shifted from standards to local training issues. There were two developments here. First, by 1984, Bryant Welch, Nathan Stockhamer, and Ernest Lawrence had organized a group to sue the American for restraint of trade, and a lawsuit was filed on March I, 1985. The purpose of the suit was to force local Institutes of the American to admit psychologists, and the specific intent was to help psychologists throughout the United States. The lawsuit, with its expenses and purposes—and its focus on non-New Yorkers—would become a primary Division agenda item for many years.

The second development in 1984 was that Helen Block Lewis assumed the presidency of the Division. Lewis, a stalwart of the less traditional viewpoint, had long appreciated and strongly supported the importance of local chapter development. Upon assuming the presidency she appointed me chair of the newly created National Program Committee—in line with the idea of developing a national program—and she and I called for a Nationwide Conference on Psychoanalytic Training, which was held in New York City on Dec. 1-2, 1984. What a wonderful conference that was! There were representatives from Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Michigan, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, New Haven, and Denver, and all delegates were fascinated to hear about the other local chapters, about other groups in various phases of development, all of which had heretofore been isolated groups but which now had representation at this meeting of the Division of Psychoanalysis.

Immediately, the participants issued a call for further conferences and further dialogue about matters such as organizational development and training issues. It seemed reasonable to hold a series of meetings, and indeed to hold a major conference on psychoanalytic training, an idea that suited the local chapters who were experimenting with new educational forms, and also suited the (future) Section V group, who wanted dialogue with Section I. However, conferences require funding, and this would likely not be forthcoming from the Division, given the political situation. Accordingly, Helen Block Lewis set out to gain grant funding, and in short order the Exxon Foundation granted $25,000 to be used first for preconference and then for a major conference on psychoanalytic training. The preconference, which was the second convening of local chapters, was partially supported by the Exxon foundation and met in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on June 21-23, 1985. The major training conference, of course, is this Clark Conference, which was in great part supported by the Exxon grant.

In 1985, representatives of local chapters realized the necessity of a political power base within the Division in order to press for their goals, and petitions to form a Section of Local Chapters were circulated. The Division board approved the Section of Local Chapters (Section IV) in October, 1985.

I wish at this point to describe the quirky, convoluted politics of the 1984-1986 phase of the Division's development. In 1984, Section I was still dominant and the future Section V was still unclear, and these antagonists now took opposite sides in reference to the emerging local chapters, with the future Section V people strongly supporting local chapters and the Section 1 people in opposition—not in opposition to local chapters, just in opposition to the developments that were unfolding. Perhaps the most peculiar aspect of this political scene is that the local groups, so far as standards was concerned, were strongly identified with the values of Section 1. Hence, they could easily have become the allies of Section I. Indeed, in 1983, had Section I been so inclined (which it decidedly was not!), it could have organized the local chapter movement, rather than the Division doing so a year later.

The reason that local chapters were most clearly identified with Section 1 values seems clear enough. Psychologists in places such as Michigan, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Washington, and Boston were essentially aware of only one model of psychoanalysis, that of the local Institute of the American. Often these psychologists hung around the fringes of the local medical society, and were analyzed, supervised (psychotherapy, of course), and taught by members of the American. In Michigan, for example, a 1981 survey of the fledgling Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology found not one interpersonalist among the respondents, indicating that the interpersonal approach had not quite made it to the Midwest. Thus, the theoretical focus of most non-New Yorkers was mostly what I label mainstream American Freudian, so that these psychologists were natural allies of Section I, so far as standards were concerned.

On the other hand, the founders of local chapters (see, in this Volume, the articles of Gourevitch, Hyman, Kainer, Meisels, Shapiro, Slavin, and Spezzano) were strong-willed individualists: They had defied the local authority of the American, had courageously launched new organizations, and were well aware that any training activities in their areas would require nontraditional, creative educational forms. It was this that Section 1 apparently opposed. At the time, Section I people largely controlled the Division's Education and Training Committee, and they seemed to have the idea that the Education and Training Committee should set standards and requirements for local training groups. Already, at the December, 1984, Nationwide Conference—the first conference—conflict between the local chapters and the Educational and Training Committee had emerged, for local leaders were outraged at the idea that, having finally achieved local autonomy for psychologists, they would be asked to surrender that autonomy to a new central authority, even to the central authority of their own Division.

In the event, Section I leaders were generally opposed to the events that were unfolding. They were either opposed to, or were fighting rearguard actions against, such developments as the National Program Committee; the December, 1984, New York conference; the June, 1985, Ann Arbor conference; even to the formation of the Section of Local Chapters; and to this Clark Conference. Section I, which in its first years had launched the initiatives that had provided the Division's agenda, had misread the major currents that were developing, and had lost the initiative.

AFTERMATH

In retrospect, it might be said that the Division is constituted of diverse constituencies, much like the APA itself, and that the history of the Division is characterized by the emergence of these constituencies (the other two major groups that were not controversial were the Section on Childhood and Adolescence, and the Section on Women and Psychoanalysis). The intense, emotional, colorful conflict of the 1982-1986 period may be understood as a playing out of some of the major antipathies in the field of psychoanalysis, prior to the time that the Division developed the organizational solution of establishing new sections to accommodate emerging constituencies. Since then, since 1986, conflict has largely subsided. In the end, there was more eros than thanatos, and all constituencies seemed to agree that, to paraphrase, “If we don't hang together, we may hang separately.”

DISCUSSION

I shall now discuss this historical material from the point of view of two common fantasies. First I shall present the fantasies and then indicate how I think they impacted on the history of the Division.

Fantasy No. 1: There is a Higher Justice

One of the persistent themes in the history of humankind, and in the Division, is a complaint about being mistreated and misunderstood, accompanied by an appeal that some higher authority might rectify the situation. For example, I have heard a number of psychiatrist-psychoanalysts bemoan their mistreatment by federal and state legislatures, for they feel that they have been injured, have been dealt a grave injustice, and they await the age when justice will prevail and the legislatures will declare that psychoanalysis—indeed, psychotherapy—is the province of medicine.

So, too, have I heard numbers of Freudians who are aggrieved because so many non-Freudians label themselves psychoanalysts. Why don't they call themselves something else instead, they ask. These individuals await the day of justice, when their rivals will see the light, and leave the term “psychoanalysis” to its proper Freudian home.

And psychologists and social workers—and others—who have so long felt betrayed and abused by the American Psychoanalytic Association (the American) and the International Psychoanalytic Association (the International), who have felt the sting of discrimination, ...