Unfree Associations: Inside Psychoanalytic Institutes

Introduction  •  Chapter 1  •   Chapter 2  •  Chapter 3  •  Chapter 4  •  Conclusion  •  Bibliography

by Douglas Kirsner

Chapter 1: The anointed - The New York Psychoanalytic Institute

I don't think there's a major split in New York on ideological lines. A major problem New York has had is the age-old problem of all institutes-who will have the right to train? How do you get on the ladder? Favouritism, nepotism, how to be assigned to the right analyst who had an interest in your career.

-New York analyst. ¹

With more than forty psychoanalytic institutes, New York City boasts the highest incidence of psychoanalysts anywhere the world. The three APsaA affiliated institutes and societies comprising about 800 members make the number of APsaA analysts in the New York area vastly greater than in any other area.2

For the two or three decades after World War II when psychoanalysis dominated psychiatry and was very influential in the universities, membership of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute (NYPsaI) was very prestigious. To be a leader in the NYPsaI conferred immense power and distinction not only within psychoanalysis but also within psychiatry and the general culture. Until now, the story has not been told about how for the four decades following World War II the New York Psychoanalytic Institute was controlled by a small inner group. This group felt they possessed special knowledge and acted as an anointed elite.

Anointment and genealogy fill a vacuum created by uncertainty in the field. Instead of developing through an accumulation of evidence, psychoanalytic knowledge is often assumed to develop via a pipeline of certain people with supposed knowledge. Those purported to have the truth pass on the torch to selected members the next generation. For a qualification to be conferred, a level of skill and knowledge is assumed, an assumption that is not really warranted. Therefore, the gap between real knowledge and presumed 'pretend' knowledge is filled through particular 'anointed' people. The story of the NYPsaI is an exemplary tale of anointment, of what fills the gap when there is a contradiction between the nature of the psychoanalytic field-experiential, subjective, and yet (if ever) to be established scientifically-and the assumption that qualification as an analyst reflects a high level of knowledge.

However, control by a small ruling clique has not been limited to the NYPsaI.3 Authoritarianism in psychoanalysis is not the property of the particular personalities who are in control. It may have its source in the way that Freud structured the psychoanalytic movement. In this sense, the personalities of those who have maintained authoritarianism are less important because they tried to adhere to what was given to them.4 Sandor Rado remarked that it is well known that people in disagreement with the group they leave reproduce that group's authoritarianism.5

This very New York story thus involves the coalescence of issues that are common to all psychoanalytic institutes and issues that are particular to this one. It is about an arrogant ruling clique who behaved as though they had a channel to the truth, and about the resistance of the majority of members who opposed them. It is also about a 'revolution' in the mid-1980s from within the ruling group that finally brought about more open and democratic procedures with a greater degree of tolerance and pluralism. This revolution from within was like Gorbachev's success within the Soviet elite that brought about 'openness' and 'restructuring'.

During the four post-War decades, the power structure of the NYPsaI meant that candidates identified with their analysts to produce an atmosphere akin to an orthodox religious institution. A ruling coterie of principally European analysts gained control through both intellectual and political processes, and then refused to share power with anyone else. They controlled access to training analyst status and most of the major institute committees, especially the closed and all-powerful Educational Committee (EC). The EC was the central institute body that made the vital decisions about subcommittees, admission, graduation, curriculum, appointments of training and supervising analysts, in fact everything germane to training. The inner group's control of the EC became self-perpetuating since the outgoing EC nominated the slate of training analysts standing for the election to the next EC. This oligarchy intimidated candidates and analysts alike.6

Beginnings

The 1910 Nuremberg Psychoanalytic Congress adopted a plan for to set up The International Psychoanalytic Association with local branches. Freud wanted James Jackson Putnam of Boston to be the leader of institutional psychoanalysis in the US and found the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). However, Abraham A. Brill (1874-1948) formed the New York Psychoanalytic Society (NYPsaS) which subsequently refused to join the APsaA.7 On February 11, 1911 by 15 psychiatrists led by Brill and Clarence Oberndorf founded the NYPsaS. Brill had met with a group of psychiatrists to discuss Freud's work since 1908. Brill lectured extensively on psychoanalysis and his translations of Freud were responsible for much of the dissemination of Freud's ideas in the US. Brill became an important leader of American psychoanalysis, as did Oberndorf. Both held firmly to the position that prevailed in the US that analysts needed to be medically qualified (a view that ruled from the 1920s to the 1980s). At its Weimar Congress that summer, the International Psychoanalytic Association accepted both the APsaA (founded three months later) and the New York Psychoanalytic Society as independent members. The NYPsaI, the first American psychoanalytic training institute, was established on September 24, 1931 under Sandor Rado who was specially brought from Berlin to be its director.

The two other APsaA affiliated institutes in New York were formed from within the NYPsaS in 1945 and 1955: in 1945 there was an acrimonious split which led to the formation of the Columbia Institute and in 1955 the New York University Institute was formed from a group of members who also retained their NYPsaI membership.8

The 1945 split in the NYPsaS centred on issues of political power and prestige far more than on theoretical differences about psychoanalytic ideology. Even in 1939, there were many complaints about an arrogant and contemptuous ruling clique at the NYPsaI. Although there were not significant theoretical differences in the institute, this political situation led to several student resignations from training.9 The Columbia Center was established at Columbia University as part of the Department of Psychiatry in 1945 in protest at what its founders saw as the intolerable authoritarianism of the NYPsaI. It continues to represent an important alternative to the NYPsaI, and for some members of both institutes, the nemesis of the NYPsaI.10 However, its structure is far from democratic.

From its inception, the NYPsaS held pride of place as the first American psychoanalytic society, the model for many other APsaA institutes and, for much of its history, the largest and most powerful American psychoanalytic organisation. It has always been the chief bearer of mainstream psychoanalysis in the US.

The context that situated the development of the NYPsaI is vital to understand. Training at the New York Psychoanalytic Society was very meagre even until the end of the 1920s. New York analyst Theodore Jacobs wrote,

If interested young physicians wished to become analysts, they sought out an analyst for themselves, attended lectures, became acquainted with the members, and hoped, in time, to be asked to join the Society. There was no formal admission procedure, no set course of instruction and no criteria for progression or gradation.11

On October 25, 1925, the New York Psychoanalytic Society formed its first Educational Committee. For the next five years, a relatively loose curriculum of didactic analysis, supervision and courses were given in sites such as A. A. Brill's home and at the Oliver Cromwell Hotel.12 Long time NYPsaI member, Charles Brenner remembered his first meeting of the APsaA in 1942 when there were about 400 members, half of whom lived in New York. He recalled his training in Boston when 'everybody knew everyone else, students and faculty alike. It was a tiny group by post-War standards. A psychoanalytic institute or society, whether in Europe or in the USA before the War, was never more than a handful of colleagues. An institute could be run very well quite informally-from someone's vest-pocket so to speak'. The European analysts who became the most influential teachers in this US after the War were accustomed to running their institutes informally. Charles Brenner saw it as inevitable that 'there would be lots of difficulty when psychoanalysis changed from what might be compared to a dame school and a cottage industry to the likes of a university campus and big business. It took a long time to make the transition from an organisation suitable for a few dozen members nation-wide to one suitable for a few thousand'.13

The arrival of the Europeans

During the early 1940s, the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (the only IPA-affiliated psychoanalytic society in New York at the time) became the premier international society. Because New York and London were the major destinations for refugee analysts fleeing Hitler in the 1930s the epicentre of psychoanalysis moved from Vienna and Berlin to New York and London.

The migration of psychoanalysts fleeing Hitler greatly boosted the growth of American psychoanalysis. Between 1933 and 1941 about 40 European analysts migrated to the US of whom 16 became training analysts by 1941. Many émigrés filled clinical positions at Mt Sinai and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.14 The APsaA's Emergency Committee on Immigration helped 41 medical analysts and 13 lay analysts migrate to the US between 1938 and 1943.15 Because of their standing and abilities, many Europeans assumed psychoanalytic leadership roles in the 1940s and quickly outshone the natives in journal publications. They exerted an enormous influence on the direction of American psychoanalysis, especially through the spread of ego psychology.16

The immigrants were reluctant to leave New York. The city provided the opportunity of considerable support from other Europeans living there. Moreover, it was far easier to obtain the medical license necessary for membership of a psychoanalytic institute in New York State than in other states.17 Psychoanalysis spread from New York across the US because of what Margaret Mahler termed the 'ambivalent if not double-edged' reception of the European psychoanalysts by the New York psychoanalytic leaders. Considering the limited population of potential analysands in New York, Mahler recalled that 'many senior analysts were less than sympathetic to the avalanche of prestigious European analysts who were then concentrated in New York. While nominally sympathetic to the plight of the refugees and helpful in expediting their relocation, these establishment figures made it plain that they would be happier if their European colleagues sank roots outside the boroughs of New York City'.18

Mixed feelings matched a mixed reception. While many analysts were receptive,19 there was also considerable resistance among prominent New York analysts. As sociologist, Lewis Coser observed, the generations responded differently to the Europeans. The older generation of American-born psychoanalysts was unreceptive to the newcomers, fearing competition. Moreover, they feared the discrepancy between their own relatively easy-going standards and what they perceived as the more rigorous standards of the Europeans. Still, the younger generation of psychoanalysts who knew many of the immigrants in Europe as fellow psychoanalysts and teachers helped the European psychoanalysts emigrate.20 Some feared that overcrowding the eastern seaboard with foreign physicians would induce New York State to impose licensing restrictions. That would make it impossible for foreign-trained physicians to practice there, and that other states might then follow.21 Nonetheless, when the president of the NYPsaS was asked for affidavits to sponsor Viennese analysts to migrate to the US after the Anschluss, he refused with the reply, 'What in the world would we do with all these additional analysts?' Fortunately, affidavits for the Viennese analysts could be collected outside psychoanalytic circles.22

Many American analysts, then, were clearly concerned about competition from the newly arrived Europeans.23 This should be seen in the context that from the late 1930s to the early 1940s the political and economic climate changed as the Great Depression dissolved into World War II. However, in 1937-38 given that times were hard for everybody, unabashed attempts were made to move the European analysts out of the major population centres. Real concerns about economic rivalry from the Europeans remained until the US became involved in the War and many analysts and psychiatrists were drafted. Even by the early 1940s, Jacob Arlow remembered charging his first analytic patients four dollars per session and feeling put off that his closest colleague, Leo Rangell, charged five dollars!24

While Bertram Lewin was opposed to sponsorship during his presidency of the NYPsaS (1936-39), Lawrence Kubie who followed him as president (1939-40), was very active in rescuing European colleagues. Kubie and Bettina Warburg cochaired the APsaA's Emergency Committee on Immigration.25 However, the APsaA's Emergency Committee wrote to intending European refugee analysts in 1938 stating that they must clearly understand 'that the practice of psychoanalysis on adults without a medical license or a medical degree is a violation of the law for which severe penalties have sometimes been imposed'.26 This claim was a great exaggeration, even deception. In an isolated case, an untrained lay 'analyst' was fined $500 after a complaint by a client.27 The analysts' claim was reminiscent of the earlier claim by the NYPsaS that the practice of lay analysis was in violation of New York State law-there was no such law.28 Such claims were devices for population control.

At a 1939 conference of refugee psychoanalysts convened by NYPsaI EC chairman Adolph Stern, senior NYPsaI analysts advised the refugees to obtain New York medical licenses. Then, Margaret Mahler recollected, the refugees were told to 'go "pioneering" to Buffalo, Utica, Syracuse, or some other upstate location'. Everyone was stunned by what was viewed as a preposterous directive to leave the city.29 However, this directive was scarcely as wrong as the refusal to provide affidavits for Jewish analysts to be able to leave the terrors of Austria or Germany.

The Americans reacted to the influx of Europeans by going further along the road of regulation. Apart from the NYPsaI unflinching position about medical prerequisites, psychoanalytic training in the US before the arrival of the Europeans was relatively lax. During the late 1930s, the APsaA rules were made far stricter in an attempt to stop the refugees just walking in and taking over because of their seniority and perceived higher psychoanalytic skills. In 1937, the NYPsaI made a training analysis prerequisite for future members. However, this requirement did not question the qualifications of the American analysts. It was a reaction to the current influx of European analysts some of whom were training analysts who had not had personal analyses. 1937 also saw the APsaA (with the NYPsaS as its most prominent member) declare to International and European psychoanalytic societies that it would not recognise membership of foreign psychoanalytic societies as fulfilling the membership requirements of American societies. This irritated many immigrants who had to apply for membership of the NYPsaS.30 After a major struggle with the IPA, the Americans finally agreed in 1938 to accept European lay analysts who were members of the IPA as members.31 Brought up in a tradition around Freud which eschewed national considerations in favour of being psychoanalytic citizens of the world, the Europeans mistakenly expected to be appointed training analysts upon their arrival. This assumed that being a training analyst was a qualification of universal status instead of a particular position or function within a particular institute that had a certain number of students and teachers.32

Despite the pressure to leave New York City, one-third of the European analysts remained in New York, settling in privileged areas in Park Avenue, Central Park West and around Columbia University.33 The immigrants, who constituted the majority of the inner group, and their analytic descendants took over the NYPsaI for the next forty years.34 Apart from their 'inside' status in the psychoanalytic movement and their status as the teachers of several of the Americans, the Europeans were formidable in their own right. As well as their analytic genealogy, their success was also based on their analytic expertise, given the extent of their perceived higher abilities as teachers, practitioners and theoreticians.35 Many were highly reputed in Europe and continued their creativity in the US to become, in the words of leading institute member, Norman Margolis, ''titans in the field'.36 The Europeans replaced those American NYPsaI analysts who were drafted during World War II. From a power-political point of view, many of the Americans were understandably concerned about the arrival of the Europeans who succeeded in gaining dominance over the Americans.37 Because of the movement to other cities, the influence of psychoanalysis spread-schools across the country acquired first class analytic teachers.38 Finally, the Europeans prevailed throughout the US.39

The major European figures who came to New York included Heinz Hartmann, Ernst and Marianne Kris, Rudolph Loewenstein, Edith Jacobson, Hermann Nunberg, Annie Reich, Robert Bak, Kurt and Ruth Eissler, Otto Isakower and Margaret Mahler. A number were very close to Freud and his family. Marianne Kris was the daughter of Freud's close friend, colleague and tarok partner who figured in the dream of Irma's injection, Oscar Rie. Her sister, Margarete, was married to Hermann Nunberg who was part of Freud's circle.40 As part of Freud's circle and coming from the centre of international psychoanalysis, the Europeans were powerful and central characters in a unique cast who greatly contributed to the pre-eminence of the NYPsaI.41

With a European psychoanalysis strongly influenced by European humanism, the American psychoanalysis that the Europeans joined was rigidly medicalized and closely allied with psychiatry. Before they came to the US a number of the Europeans were left-wing intellectuals. Born around the turn of the century, the second generation of European psychoanalysts was decisively influenced by the European youth movements, World War I, and the post-war workers' revolutions. These psychoanalysts never thought of psychoanalysis as a trade; instead, they saw it as a cause that would help bring sense to a disjointed world.42 That world could not have become more disjointed with Hitler and their Trans-Atlantic migration.

For the Europeans who pushed the American analysts aside, the mission of ruling the NYPsaI meant far more than gaining control of a large psychoanalytic institute-for them the NYPsaI was to be the repository of a cause, true psychoanalysis. Aiming at the preservation of something they saw as very precious-psychoanalysis itself-the Europeans were the keepers of the flame who ensured that they retained control of the institute by whatever means were necessary. Thus, they excluded those whom they saw as not directly linked with the Europeans who possessed psychoanalytic truth, who had not had ongoing analysis, supervision or other personal contacts with Freud or his immediate circle. That impressive legacy unfortunately allowed the NYPsaI and its leadership to be commonly viewed in quasi-religious terms as a mysterious 'holy of holies' where the Grail was kept. The leadership was akin to a Council of Elders with special access to Freud and to psychoanalytic truth. Loyalty to Anna Freud, with whom several of the group remained close, played an important part in their attitudes. These cohorts of Anna Freud were partly motivated to maintain control by the success of the Kleinian movement over Anna Freud in London during the same period.

Halcyon years

During the 1950's, the major divisions within the institute were unknown to the outside world. Perhaps these divisions did not result in splits because, as one analyst told me, the institute was always 'very careful about pushing things to the point where people leave in a group'.43

The fact that the inner group's greatest ascendancy was during the 1950s and early 1960s-halcyon days for psychoanalysis-seemed to provide confirmation that its ascendancy was good for psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was the major psychotherapy available to the many physicians wanting training after World War II. Before the introduction and widespread use of effective psychotropic drugs, the great hope for mental illness was dynamic psychiatry.44 Psychoanalysis was such an important part of American psychiatry after the War that William Menninger (chief of Army psychiatry in the office of the Surgeon General during World War II) represented the prevailing view when he described psychoanalysis as 'probably the most important contribution to our technical knowledge in the history of psychiatry'.45 Until the 1960s analytic training was considered a necessary calling card in psychiatry, particularly in New York, with which it became enmeshed as in no other country.46 The many medical students who trained in psychiatry regarded their psychiatric residencies as interludes before going on to train at psychoanalytic institutes.47

Economic factors were central to the success of psychoanalysis from the 1950s. Created in 1949, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) was the fastest growing section of the National Institute of Health. Research grants increased from $374,000 dollars in 1948 to $42.6 million in 1962 and training grants from $1.1 million to $38.8 million over the same period. The government offered especially generous stipends to physicians who trained in psychiatry and required nothing in return-not even that physicians spend some time working in state mental hospitals (which was the intention of the original legislation).48 With the number of afflicted veterans, the Veterans Administration was also a major source of funding. As it was more affluent than European countries in the post-War decades, the US could afford training and treatment on a large scale. A booming economy was necessary for psychoanalytic therapy to be carried out on a large scale.

Psychoanalysis was an attractive specialty during these decades. Psychiatrists were greatly encouraged to go on to psychoanalytic training: with the clamour for medical psychoanalysts, psychoanalysis afforded a good income. Moreover, psychoanalysis permeated American intellectual life, especially in New York. With an abiding myth about the answers that psychoanalysis could provide, this cultural context, together with interest, affluence and demand for treatment set psychoanalysis on a successful path. Especially around Manhattan, this boom period for psychoanalysis from the late 1940s into the 1960s when many patients could afford analytic treatment was the era when the European émigré 'giants' taught at the institute.

Psychoanalysis and its premier institute were so prestigious, the rewards of becoming an analyst so bountiful, and the intimidation and control of the inner group so effective that there was no challenge to those in power. Significant economic advantages accrued to being on side with the professionally well-established ruling clique who were a source of referrals for younger analysts who needed patients.49 Without objective measures of merit a courtier culture prevailed in which members, deprived of any direct power, were forced to seek influence with the ruling group through informal connections. As psychoanalysis bloomed during the 1950s, analysts became rich and the NYPsaI increasingly cliquish.

In its heyday, the NYPsaI provided the premier postgraduate training centre for the many gifted students who wanted to be psychoanalysts. Immense secrecy clothed the workings of the NYPsaI Admissions Committee which made or broke careers. To be rejected rendered one a second class citizen while admission to the NYPsaI promised a prestigious and wealthy career.50

While many candidates took for granted that there were enormously gifted people at the top who must have deserved their positions, others were more critical. Some were schooled in left wing political activities during and after World War II, such as those that achieved salaries for interns at local hospital level. Eleanor Galenson, who trained at the NYPsaI during the early 1950s, arrived there accustomed to 'a rather forthright expression of our opinions and our minds. We came into an institute where the tradition was holy, looking up to the teachers-they were the elect. The first ten rows of our auditorium were always occupied by the same big people. Then the students came in the twelfth row'. Many analysts of that generation did not participate in work outside the institute, in universities or hospital settings. However, perhaps 40 American NYPsaI analysts became involved at Mt. Sinai as attending physicians.51 Moreover, many candidates received their psychiatric training in the very different culture of city hospitals.

For example, a strong psychoanalytic staff was gathered by Milton Rosenbaum, founder and Chair of the Psychiatry Department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, established in 1955 at Yeshiva University in New York. An analyst from Cincinnati (he was a geographic training analyst at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute), Rosenbaum strongly envisioned a psychiatry department with psychoanalysis as its leading discourse. In those financially and ideologically golden days for psychoanalysis, Rosenbaum was able to bring together a brilliant group of core faculty with a real sense of intellectual excitement. Psychoanalysis was then in such favour that Rosenbaum was able to negotiate for residents to receive NIMH Fellowships of $3,600 a year to support their personal analyses. Rosenbaum arranged the patriation of some European analysts such as Robert Bak and Andrew Peto who joined the NYPsaI, resulting in a great deal of indebtedness to Rosenbaum. The NYPsaI analysts came to the Bronx to give seminars and supervise in the residency training program at Einstein. The curricula of the NYPsaI and Einstein were said to be identical.52 A shuttle was set up between Einstein and the NYPsaI. Residents were taught at Einstein from an analytic viewpoint and applied immediately to the NYPsaI, probably more than from anywhere else.53

Remarkably forceful and talented residents went on to undertake analytic training. Einstein became the most sought after US psychiatric residency because it had so many very good teachers. According to Joel Kovel who trained at Einstein between 1962 and 1965 and later taught there, Einstein residents felt sufficiently entitled and prideful to give the impression of independent thought.54 Eleanor Galenson who taught at Einstein recalled residents being 'encouraged to challenge us, to do their own thinking'. Galenson found what happened when they went to the analytic institute in the 1960s and early 1970s very disturbing. 'They became afraid to open their mouths, to challenge their teachers in any way'. Many candidates graduated from analytic training at the NYPsaI by aping what they were taught. Those analysts, who were used to speaking their minds on political issues, Galenson recalled, 'spoke in this peculiar hush-hush way'.55 In 1976, Charles Brenner noted a trend toward conformity among students since the polarised institute was run by a small unrepresentative group.56

The anointed

In the decades following World War II, the NYPsaI was reasonably perceived by those outside it as a closed corporation and as the repository of psychoanalytic orthodoxy.

However, this orthodoxy has been almost universally misunderstood. The real situation was quite contrary to the popular view that the institute was under the control of the most well-known psychoanalytic theorists and clinicians-the founders of ego psychology-Heinz Hartmann, Ernst Kris and Rudolph Loewenstein-followed by Charles Brenner and Jacob Arlow. Although intellectually powerful, the "holy trinity" of Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein did not actively exercise political power as such. Their ego psychology, the NYPsaI orthodoxy for decades, challenged classical Freudianism and in turn many later repudiated their ego psychological concepts.57 Far from running the institute, Brenner and Arlow opposed the ruling clique within the institute. Brenner and Arlow's views did not constitute the central approach at the NYPsaI even though their Psychoanalytic concepts and structural theory together with Brenner's standard Elementary textbook of psychoanalysis58 appeared to represent the NYPsaI to psychiatrists and psychoanalysts around the USA. Brenner and Arlow's approaches are independent and both differ from classical psychoanalysis.59 Both are past presidents of the APsaA and have published voluminously. Arlow has always been a particularly outspoken critic of authoritarianism in psychoanalytic training.60 Charles Brenner fought hard to disregard many of Freud's ideas before The Ego and the Id (1923) during the ascendancy of the inner group. He has recently challenged the classical concepts of The ego and the id..61

In contrast, most of those Europeans who occupied the central power positions in the NYPsaI published little and were not generally well-known. However, they acted as repositories of established psychoanalytic truth which, like magical transmission, could only be passed down effectively from analyst to analysand. The NYPsaI orthodoxy was not so much an orthodoxy of ideas as of persons. The Europeans who came to the NYPsaI did not preserve a particular set of ideas as much as a faith in the lineage from Freud. Because of their anointment, they saw themselves as entitled to develop aspects of psychoanalysis, whereas others were not so permitted. This helps to explain why Instructors at the NYPsaI have always been granted a wide berth to teach as they wanted.62 (At the NYPsaI Training and Supervising Analysts are called 'Instructors'). As Arnold Richards noted, once one became a training analyst one was almost like God and could do what one wanted. (Richards trained at the NYPsaI 1964-69 and became a NYPsaI leader in the 1980s).63 Since only certain analysts were selected to teach, this was not so much 'academic freedom' as much as faith in the entitlement of particular persons who inherited the mantle ultimately from Freud and his inner circle. It was not what analysts did and thought so much as who they were, which in turn came from who trained them. Orthodoxy was defined by the current beliefs of those in control, not by a particular set of shared beliefs among the power group. It was a question of who could be trusted.

The oligarchy controlling the institute for the four decades after World War II consisted mostly of Europeans who escaped Hitler. A group of about twenty Europeans was led by Otto Isakower but there were divisions within that group. Most of the better-known Europeans-Heinz Hartmann, Ernst and Marianne Kris, Rudolph Loewenstein, Annie Reich, and Margaret Mahler-were relatively marginal to power and to most of the rest of the group.64 However, although Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein were not very involved politically,65 they were essential bolsters to the ruling group during the period following Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein, the ruling group with which they were associated lost its pre-eminence.

A major division also existed between the Europeans and the Americans.66 Europeans such as Kurt and Ruth Eissler and Anna-Marie and Fred Weil seemed to display little regard for the faculty. They would often attend faculty Meetings simply to cast their vote and then go home. Highly protective and slightly paranoid, they were especially interested in who was going to be Chairman of the EC and the Progression Committee (which oversaw the academic progress of candidates).67 The Chairman of the EC had such inordinate powers as to be, as one analyst put it, virtually 'dictator of the institute'.68

The core of the group of about 20 that acted as though it possessed special power and magic included its leader, Otto Isakower together with Lillian Malcove, Kurt Eissler (who became Freud's greatest defender through his directorship of the Freud Archives and his many books mainly on cultural topics), Ruth Eissler, Nicholas Young, Lili Bussel, Hermann Nunberg, Elizabeth Gleerd Loewenstein, Robert Bak, Ed Kronold, Phyllis Greenacre. (In the 1970s power passed to the next generation-all Americans-including Peter Richter, Irwin Solomon and Martin Stein). While the basic leadership of the ruling group was Viennese, there was a coalition with others-such as Phyllis Greenacre and later Martin Stein-who were willing to cooperate with it.

A number of these leaders apparently wanted their students to follow in their footsteps as disciples. Analysands divided into two groups, those remaining loyal to their training analysts and those who joined the rebel camp.69 For example, a group of five of Nunberg's analysands frequently voted the same way and did what Nunberg expected of them.70 Phyllis Greenacre analysed the greatest number of candidates over a long period. Her candidates divided into two, those that went along with her approach and those that rebelled against it.71 While Greenacre criticised the 'convoy' aspects of the training analysis (analysands were shepherded or convoyed by the analyst through the important parts of their professional careers), some saw her as exemplifying this process herself although she was also known to shy away from NYPsaI politics.72 Sometimes, the inner group cemented their relations with each other through adjacent summer homes, such as a group around Greenacre in Garrison, New York.73 According to EC chairman, Manny Furer (who trained at the NYPsaI between 1954 and 1958), Greenacre was 'the analyst of analysts, particularly those who were troubled'.74

Ken Calder has had a long involvement with the NYPsaI. He studied at the NYPsaI during the 1950s and was appointed as a training analyst in 1963. A former president of the NYPsaI (1980-1982) and the APsaA (1977) and former vice-president of the IPA, he is much respected for his principled and independent positions. According to Calder, the Americans were often regarded by the European clique as many in the NYPsaI regard Columbia even today-they don't do real analysis. While the Europeans may have been by and large more competent as analysts (they appeared more cultured, scholarly and more analytically gifted than the Americans), over the years the issue of competence became lost and conflated with the issue of whose analyst was the most renowned.75 Calder recalled that those who knew Sigmund and Anna Freud and were part of Freud's own group in Europe (such as the Eisslers and Nunberg) seemed to have a special power and magic that they could pass on. As he put it, they behaved as though there was a right way and a wrong way. The NYPsaI's approach was like the Hertz TV advertisement where Hertz had something, and on each criterion, the other had it 'but not exactly'. 'You can practice psychoanalysis but not exactly unless you went through the right channels'. In the eyes of the NYPsaI, Calder maintained, psychoanalysis was practised and understood much better in New York than other places. However, politics was clearly involved. Some became training analysts, even though it was clear, in Calder's view, that 'they really didn't know much about psychoanalysis but they had played the right political ladder'. This was 'strictly back pocket selection'. On Calder's account, those in control would 'select their buddies and they would select the people who would invite them for dinner'.76 According to Calder, power belonged to 'senior people who have supported rather anxious younger people who have played up to them. The power passed not on the basis of competence but on the basis of, "Will you, the junior person, believe in me the senior person? If so, I will send you a patient". We used to say that the person with the busiest practice was the younger person who invited senior people to dinner-that opened the doors'.77 Calder observed that while power played a large role in many US institutes, 'it was outstanding at New York'.78

An important part of the NYPsaI culture, study groups provided important gatekeeping mechanisms. Certain students were tapped and invited to join important study groups. Ruth Eissler set up a particularly significant study group of about 15 selected people who met in her office. They had bright futures since Ruth Eissler could champion their cause and report on their abilities, unlike others who had no study groups.79 Many members of Ruth Eissler's handpicked study group were successfully slated to become training analysts. Many were careful about what they said for fear of not being selected to become training analysts.80 There could be no doubt that Ruth Eissler was involved with convoying.81 The Kris Study Group, the original NYPsaI study group for advanced candidates and graduates to discuss a variety of psychoanalytic issues, was set up in 1953. Led by the NYPsaI's most revered educator, Ernst Kris, together with a visitor, it was attended by around 20 analysts. When Kris died, Arlow, Brenner and David Beres led the study group.82

In the Introduction I referred to Kernberg's four models of psychoanalytic institutes-seminary, trade school, university and art academy. In this framework, the NYPsaI approach was clearly devotional and seminarian during these four decades. Training analyses were incomplete if only because issues such as transference idealisation of the training analyst who exercised power were regarded by the NYPsaI orthodoxy as merely regressions from oedipal hostilities.83 NYPsaS member Emanuel Peterfreund argued that much analytic clinical practice is 'stereotyped' in taking the patient as 'but an example of an assumed body of clinical theory'. This, he proposed, contrasted with a 'heuristic' approach that encourages 'new awarenesses and understandings to emerge about an individual patient'.84 Peterfreund's views on stereotyping reflected his training at the NYPsaI (1953-59). 'I never heard one thoughtful, critical, intelligent, meaningful appraisal of psychoanalytic theory as a body of theory. It was taught like a Yeshiva, as "the book"-you're allowed to ask questions about what 'the book' meant. Did it mean this or did it mean that?'85 One analyst recalled complaining to his training analyst that he was treating Freud like the Bible, the training analyst replied, 'It is not like the Bible. It is the Bible'. The difference between NYPsaI and other institutes, according to this analyst, was that elsewhere 'Freud is acknowledged but not revered'.86

A siege mentality pervaded the power group who were committed to preserving what they had. Calder described the inner group as 'a cult that believes in the magic of their belief that they have a pipeline to the truth and others don't'. In Calder's view this implied insecurity, 'a very good likelihood that they have that religion only because they are so unsure of what they do'. However, Calder believed they were right to have been uncertain because it is in the nature of psychoanalysis to be unsure.87

An important element of the context was the fact that graduates of the institute automatically became members of both branches, the NYPsaS and the intimately related, NYPsaI, the educational arm.88 The NYPsaI was almost entirely financially supported by the NYPsaS that consisted of the membership of graduates and practitioners.89 The NYPsaI was unusual among psychoanalytic institutes because in addition to ordinary institute and society expenses, considerable outlays were involved in the upkeep and staffing of a mildly decaying building, a considerable library and the invaluable Brill Archive which housed early society and institute documents. Assessments (compulsory contributions) needed to be kept higher than the two other APsaA institutes in New York City, Columbia and NYU, which have been always subsidised by the hospital and medical school. Together with lawsuits in the 1970s, these costs were to lead to the near bankruptcy of the New York Institute and Society.

Members could not ignore the contrast between their large contributions through dues and assessments that saved and financed the institute and their lack of power in the institute, a situation that made for inevitable conflict.90

Despite the faculty's view that, just as democracy should not prevail in an educational institution, the members should not run the institute the leadership made no attempt to have the faculty raise funds to make itself independent of the society. The power group opposed the institution of a lay Board of Trustees who would have been able to help raise funds for the institute.91 During the golden years of psychoanalysis, the idea that a free-standing institute required a preferably lay Board of Trustees was not taken seriously. In general, as Arlow put it, 'On the basis of this kind of semi-religious attitude, they cut themselves off from very valuable contacts. The sense of power and self-satisfaction of the leaders was enormous'.92 The leadership wanted to retain the myth of mystical knowledge.93

Otto Isakower

The principally European group that dominated the NYPsaI during the 1950s and for much of the 1960s was led by Otto Isakower (1899-1972). Born in Vienna where he trained in medicine and psychiatry Isakower trained at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, becoming a member in 1925. He escaped the Nazis by moving to England from where he moved to New York in 1940. He became a full member of the NYPsaS in 1943 and soon became a member of the faculty. Isakower served as Chairman of a number of committees including the EC, and in 1955 together with Martin Stein, devised the psychoanalytic curriculum that remains in use today.

Like many others in the inner group that ran the NYPsaI Isakower published very little (just four published articles) but exerted great influence.94 Although Isakower exercised such power, he was shy. He could be personable but was nonetheless arrogant and caustic.95 New York analyst, Theodore Jacobs recalled, 'Although Otto Isakower was a small and delicate-looking man, the sharpness of his tongue, his forbidding manner, and the sarcasm of which he was capable, struck terror into the hearts of generations of students'.96 Analysts too were frightened of him. After all, he and his cohort controlled the important training programs and the selection of Instructors. This involved not only the selection of who became training analysts but who would teach particular courses.97 Powerful members of the institute controlled the committee involved in the assignment of candidates to particular training analysts. Politically successful Instructors usually had a good number of candidates.98 Moreover, Isakower always supported his analysands in becoming members of the NYPsaS.99 Very penetrating and bright, he was also generally personally isolated except for a few of the Europeans in his group and his best friend, Bertram Lewin. He never drew a crowd, but the crowd was drawn to him.100

Isakower formulated the 'Isakower phenomenon' which explored the sense of dizziness and loss of support as we fall asleep, as well as the idea of the 'analysing instrument' which involved the notion that the patient could be heard on two levels, on the dream-imagination level and simultaneously on the waking reality level. As one of Isakower's students, New York analyst, Zvi Lothane explained, the analysing instrument

is a special communicative interaction in a regressed state and daydream consciousness in which images surfacing in the analysand evoke-and the stress is on this evocative function-counter images in the listening analyst. By judiciously communicating his own evoked images, the analyst makes a heuristic contribution to the ever unfolding state of mind of the analysand, with emergence of new images in him, all this going to stimulate the analysand further evolving memory-fantasy constellations.101

Isakower's development of the idea of the 'analysing instrument' in the clinical situation102 could be used to provide a rationale for the mostly close, suspicious Viennese group's division of the analytic world into the few in the NYPsaI who had the magic and on the other those at Columbia or in other APsaA institutes outside New York who were seen to be practising psychoanalysis in name only.103 Because the concept of the analysing instrument involved both analyst and analysand utilising regression in order to function and communicate together in what Isakower regarded as the specific analytic activity of making the unconscious conscious,104 a special sort of intuition was required on the part of the analyst. Analytic work was enhanced by the automating of the psychic functions necessary to do analysis, away from conscious awareness. Given how nebulous this concept is, it could be easily misused to claim arbitrarily that certain designated analysts had that intuition while others did not. The concept came to be used in an esoteric way at the NYPsaI psychoanalysis became the preserve of a small number of those deemed to possess a special gift.105 Such an attitude was, Jacob Arlow argued, reminiscent of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah:

The feeling was that there was a way of knowing the true essence of existence, which was granted only to very special people, usually by virtue of extreme piety and scholarship. There emerged alongside of it feelings of special endowment which came from possession of secret knowledge, the kind that was not to be imparted to the general populace. The authority for that secret knowledge was transmission from one generation to another tracing the authenticity of this material to Moses. So if you really want to know how to resolve certain contradictions and obscurities that occur in the reading of the text of the Bible the ones who really know the answers are these mystics who got it straight. That is a kind of popular myth that grows up around some important leaders.106

This approach was epitomised in a faculty meeting of the NYPsaI as late as the end of the 1980s to which Arlow was invited to speak about his views on the curriculum. A three hour argument ensued after which an influential member of the inner group, Ed Kronold, asked Arlow, '"Do you think that psychoanalysis can really be taught?" Of course, not everyone has a talent for doing analysis, but psychoanalytic concepts should be able to be communicated in a manner other than by osmosis.

Isakower's approach was used so that an intuitive grasp provided authentication for psychoanalytic work rather than the other way around-being 'well-analysed' was the criterion for whether one grasped psychoanalysis.107 (And what better stamp of a good analysis could there be than being analysed by a member of the inner group?) Without the secret knowledge communicated through the analytic version of the laying on of hands, others could not achieve knowledge even if they were gifted. In 1995 after major changes, Arlow met again with the Curriculum Committee and succeeded in convincing them that Freud needed to be taught as part of the historical development of psychoanalytic ideas, and not completely out of context.

Isakower was a powerful teacher. His belief and sincere devotion to id psychology were very influential. Analysts such as Mort Reiser, Leon Balter and Zvi Lothane sensed that he offered something profound. Like Elvin Semrad in Boston who influenced so many through his teaching at Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Mental Health, Isakower had an aura and a cult around him and, for a time, was treated as a guru-his few words conveyed profound meaning to a number of analysts. Isakower influenced a number of quiescent institute members but critics were not well treated. Victor Rosen, head of the Treatment Center for some years, lost votes for his criticism of 'the analysing instrument'.108

The European group of whom Isakower was the strongest and most visible representative looked down upon American trained analysts even at the NYPsaI. As Chairman of the EC, Isakower even proposed-unsuccessfully- eliminating the names of all of the members from the NYPsaI brochure on the grounds that he would not recommend 95% of them as people who were really qualified to practice psychoanalysis. Similarly, the child analyst Berta Bornstein, a member of the inner group close to Isakower, claimed that she could count the number of child analysts on the fingers of her hand.109 (Shades of such notions still persist in the NYPsaI).110 When Isakower was Chairman of the EC, Rudolph Loewenstein proposed a set of seminars for prospective training analysts to prepare them for their special functions. Loewenstein had set up the plans to carry out such a scheme but Isakower scotched it.111

The Isakower group carried an abiding sense of romantic pessimism that psychoanalysis was a fragile fruit that needed to be preserved. It required protection from alloy or contamination through vulgarisation-and from Americanisation, which in their eyes amounted to the same thing. The schism between American and European analysts was so great that they often barely knew one another.112 From the 1940s until the mid-1980s the European analysts kept their distance from most American analysts whom they regarded as uncultured. Some of the Isakower group were condescending toward the Americans whom they considered did not really understand psychoanalysis.113 Carrying on Freud's strong contempt for the US and Americans, they seemed uninfluenced by the fact that the objects of their disdain helped to defeat the Nazis and provided their refuge in the form of very comfortable Upper Eastside lifestyles.

From the inner group's perspective, psychoanalysis might die with them or their epigones but there was a chance of its surviving through a small, esoteric and unpopular group. In their view the heyday in which the Europeans seized power should be extended at all costs since the preservation of psychoanalysis itself was at stake. Why should they hand over a professional institute to those who, while popular, did not possess psychoanalytic knowledge?

Since psychoanalysis was so fundamentally misunderstood by the Americans in the inner group's estimation, it was only a small step to ask what means could be taken to preserve what little remained. The faith needed to be preserved against those who would usurp and destroy its essence. Such an omnipotent and omniscient approach owes more to shamanism than science. Inevitably, this resulted in the formation of a cult. Based on his experiences of analysing members and candidates at the NYPsaI, Jacob Arlow found 'a widespread, shared unconscious phantasy in which psychoanalysis as a profession is regarded as an instrumentality of magical omnipotence'. He found that 'unconsciously the goal of training is not merely to acquire insight and professional skill hut to be admitted to the council of elders. Unconsciously the process of training is suffused with the process of initiation'.114

In addition to their contempt for the hoi poloi of the NYPsaI, the Old Guard was scarcely enamoured of the NYPsaI's own Treatment Center that offered low-cost analysis by candidates in training. (Its early directors included Leo Stone, Heinz Hartmann, Victor Rosen and Leo Loomie. As purists they were upset by any possible distortions of a direct analyst-patient relationship. Therefore, they objected to patients paying the institute rather than the analyst. Isakower was concerned about even slight variations in technique such as walking the patient to the Treatment Room in the cellar where the Treatment Center was located.115 This state of affairs had unfavourable consequences for education and training bringing about a polarisation of the EC and the institute as a whole and a poor relationship with the APsaA.116

The power group disdained involvement with the APsaA. They rarely attended the annual Winter APsaA meetings held in New York, and still more rarely attended the annual Spring meetings held in other cities. Instead, they remained in their offices. From their perspective, it would be irresponsible for any real analyst to leave his or her ten or more patients a day-and, incidentally, the very good fees paid by these patients to those at the top of the NYPsaI food chain!117

However, as the 1960s wore on and the European analysts grew older, things began to change. During the 1960s and 1970s from time to time some New Yorkers became active in the APsaA: Arlow, Brenner and Calder (known as 'A-B-C'), David Beres, Victor Rosen, Burness Moore and Edward Joseph held the Presidency and a number of other offices in the APsaA and some held positions within the IPA.118 Martin Stein, an active member of the NYPsaI establishment, was an exception in being Chairman of the APsaA's Board on Professional Standards, a very influential position.

However, not only the APsaA was a problem for the inner group. There was, after all, the community at large. The problem with the NYPsaI's community relations was that there were none-it was almost xenophobic. In 1962 Victor Rosen wrote ironically, 'Most analysts seem to have regarded the community as a collective myth of archaic origin which is retained in the deepest layers of the unconscious. In most instances we do not try to analyse the fantasy but feel best advised to leave it undisturbed'. In semi-jocular vein Rosen considered the idea that the community would ultimately disappear. 'One solution to the problems inherent in this relationship is to remain quietly indoors until it disappears. In this way one day we can become a series of institute outposts across the nation with no surrounding communities to disturb us with relationships'.119 Analysts could devote themselves entirely to psychoanalysis without sullying its pure gold with the alloy of psychotherapy or hospital psychiatry.

Kurt Eissler's 1965 book, Medical orthodoxy and the future of psychoanalysis, was a polemic against the APsaA psychoanalytic establishment for its adherence to medical prerequisites and its attacks upon lay analysis.120 At another level, the book can be read as an attack on behalf of the European analysts upon the Americans who never really understood psychoanalysis. Had the Americans really understood psychoanalysis they would not have bothered with other modalities of treatment. In an extraordinary passage, Eissler argued:

The psychoanalytic profession does not... bear up well under a plurality of loyalties. If penetration into the unknown territories of the human mind by the psychoanalytic method cannot absorb the whole interest of the explorer, that in itself is a bad sign in regard to his contribution to psychoanalysis. It is hardly likely that such an analyst has ever truly felt the delight-one must even say transport-that is concomitant with the practice of Freud's psychoanalysis, nor has he probably ever experienced the thrill of the discovery that comes with seeing the most characteristic facets of human personality arise out of the debris of the subject's initial and restricted self-knowledge. (Emphasis added).121

While technical mastery of psychoanalysis no doubt requires some immersion, Eissler's statement is couched in the language of magic, of religious experience, of a cult complete with ecstatic insiders and profane outsiders who utilise esoteric terms in an empty way since they understand nothing about them. For Eissler, Freud appears as the misunderstood and underestimated guru who incurs the envious wrath of so many analysts for his genius.122

Ironically and revealingly, many wealthy European analysts who professed loyalty left none of their estate to their institute. Isakower made a significant amount of money through his analytic practice and made a very successful investment in land near the shore but he bequeathed his wealth to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His closest colleague, Lillian Malcove, left nothing to the NYPsaI. She left her entire collection of Russian Orthodox icons worth millions of dollars to the Toronto Museum which named the room housing the collection after her. Only one of the senior analysts at the NYPsaI, Grace Abbatte, left anything substantial-$80,000 for a fund to finance child analysis. It infuriated many analysts that those who claimed such a pure devotion to psychoanalysis left nothing at all to the NYPsaI which almost faced bankruptcy owing to the costs of the library, law suits against it and water leaks in the building that finally revealed an underground stream. Leaving nothing at all to the NYPsaI probably reflected the Europeans' lack of loyalty to the NYPsaI and their contemptuous view of most of its mainly American members who, in their eyes, were not really doing analysis. Not surprisingly, the fact that these senior analysts did not leave bequests to the institute contributed to unfavourable perceptions of the institute by members and to lowering morale.123

Given the trauma and terror suffered by the Europeans during the 1930s together with their common background, it was understandable why they grouped together socially in the US. But this carried over to professional matters, leading to a climate of paranoia in the institute which affected all its members Like refugees throughout the ages, perhaps their experiences of persecution in Europe, followed by becoming refugees and living in a totally new environment predisposed them to being more defensive, to try to cover over their fears and insecurities with a strong need to achieve and to cling on to power.

'They keep reappointing themselves!'

Beneath everything lay the struggle between the Old Guard who controlled and administered the institute and its Education Committee on the one hand, and on the other the dissatisfied, vocal, defiant group of institute members who accepted neither their right to power nor its vested quality. The Old Guard's power was concentrated in the EC which then appointed all the other committees actively engaged in educational work in the institute. The European power group was under considerable challenge from those among the membership for whom the ship was too tight.124 The embattled atmosphere was reflected in Ken Calder's recollection of his first faculty meeting as training analyst in 1963 when the battles were not anywhere as severe as they became.

Almost all of that first meeting was devoted to a highly emotional fight. I had known the individual participants for many years, but I had never seen them so animated. I thought I was watching the acting out of a poorly analyzed primal scene... Among other things I thought the scene spoke poorly for therapeutic efficacy of psychoanalysis. I discussed the meeting with some senior faculty members. They said, 'Don't be upset. It happens all the time'! Vic Rosen said, 'Relax! It's only personal'.

That fight lasted another 20 years, ultimately becoming a struggle between the majority of the faculty and the majority of members of the society. Ultimately, as Robert Knight pointed out in his 1953 APsaA presidential Address, the fights so endemic to the psychoanalytic field were normally about who had the right to train analysts. As Irwin Solomon, a leading member of the inner group, put it, 'In each institute this is one of the core problems: Who is to be appointed training analyst and who is not. It's really one of the major sources of trouble in institutes. It's worth thinking about because it remains a difficult task, in our institute, especially'. Solomon was believed that the problems and tensions of the 1960s and 1970s were new editions of those of the 1940s.125 The NYPsaI struggle finally diminished only in the 1980s when a new, fairer and more objective method for selecting training analysts was instituted.126

The selection of faculty-those who occupied teaching positions in the institute-was made by the power group in the EC who had complete control over the appointment of teachers. Many members felt increasingly that they were second class citizens. According to Eleanor Galenson, 'The choice of faculty was impossible to figure out. Except that if you looked at the list every year it was evident that there were some people, like Margaret Mahler, who would have seemed a likely choice of teacher wasn't. Others might be asked to teach for two or three years, as I was a child development course. I was never told why I was asked or why I wasn't going to be teaching again. I just waited. This is what they did to everyone'. In a large institute like NYPsaI of necessity many analysts feel left out as there are relatively fewer positions.127 Society members were understandably riled that even faculty membership was controlled in an arbitrary way by the ruling clique. As the NYPsaI was unique among educational institutions in being wholly supported by the general membership, it was, as Edward Joseph concluded, 'therefore entitled to a much greater voice in educational policy matters'.128

From the late 1940s onward the central power position of chairman of the EC was without exception in the hands of the inner group.129 The legal governing body of the NYPsaI, the Board of Trustees was under their domination until the late 1960s when opposition began to grow. From then on chairmen of the Board of Trustees were of a different political complexion from the Old Guard. (The position went along with the presidency of the institute that was elected by the membership at large).130 The jurisdictional battles between the EC and the institute's Board of Trustees almost always resulted in the victory of the EC, i.e. the inner group.

The EC was in charge of the curriculum, graduation and all teaching functions. The chairs and frequently members of the subcommittees of the EC-Admissions, Child Analysis, Curriculum, Research Students and Students Committee-were chosen by the EC Chairman. The subcommittees were accountable to the EC. In short, there was no point of entry without the support of the ruling clique.

From the post-war period into the 1970s appointments to training analyst status-necessary for election to the EC-needed approval from the Instructors' Executive Committee. With a membership chosen by the Chairman of the EC from among the members of the EC this committee interviewed analysts whom it invited to apply for training analyst status.131 Such status could not be attained by self-nomination and evaluations according to clear, public criteria including inviting presentations from those wishing to be considered and evaluated. By comparison, In 1969 nine out of 20 APsaA institutes used invited presentations for evaluation of training analyst status and by 1982 all but two of 25 APsaA institutes invited such presentations.132 Members of the committee that nominated training analysts privately 'tapped' analysts with the clear and pervasive sense of their being anointed in the largest and most prestigious institute in the world.133 This committee passed its recommendations back to the EC which decided the outcomes in closed session. These would then be ratified pro forma by the institute's Board of Trustees. Norman Margolis, who saw himself as being in no 'political' camp at the time, recalled: "I was 'shocked (and pleased) when informed in July 1970 that I had been appointed as an Instructor (Training and Supervising Analyst by the EC of the institute, an appointment confirmed by its Board of Trustees. I had never spoken to anyone about this as a prospect, nor had anyone ever spoken to me. When friends and colleagues asked how did this come about, I could honestly say I didn't know. From the procedural point of view, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my appointment was based on merit'.134 However, this statement provides testimony to how training analyst status seemed to come from 'out of the blue'-it is scarcely surprising that many saw the process as arbitrary.

The majority of the membership found exceptionally exasperating the mechanism by which the inner group succeeded repeatedly in reappointing themselves to the EC. For elections to the EC elections were faits accomplis. Twelve of its 17 members were elected for three-year terms. However, all the nominations, two for each seat, were made by the Instructors' Executive Committee the membership of which was appointed by the outgoing EC. (The five remaining ex officio members, including the president, vice-president and secretary of the institute, could be consistently outvoted). Nominations were not permitted from the floor but the membership could choose between the two nominations selected for each seat. The inner group guaranteed the reelection of outgoing members of the EC by ensuring they did not contest each other for the same seat and that the candidates who opposed them were weaker. (Or vice versa if they wanted a member off). However, if all else seemed to be failing, there were always the unrestrained telephone campaigns at which the ruling clique excelled. As analysands of the inner group or on their way up the hierarchy, the members of the Nominating Committee were loyal to the outgoing EC. As a result, the composition of the EC seldom changed. Nonetheless, occasionally they selected adversaries such as Burness Moore and Milton Jucovy, perhaps as token opposition.135

This self-perpetuating system was challenged by a self-scrutiny committee of the NYPsaI set up in 1970, which discussed the structure and function of the EC. This committee for 'The self-examination of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and institute' was organised and chaired by liberal-minded members, Burness Moore and Edward Joseph. The committee, supported by the Board of Trustees, felt that it could not gain sufficient access to the deliberations and procedures of the institute. Plenary conferences of the membership were held during 1970 and 1971. The institute was broken into seven committees which debated important questions in a series of workshops over 18 months. This resulted in a number of proposals including the creation of a deanship, daytime classes, earlier admission of candidates, a Research Institute and a Center for Child Analysis. The self-scrutiny committee's Final Report was presented in May 1972.136

However, the leadership acted as they usually did with anyone else's recommendations-they did nothing with the recommendations of the self-scrutiny committee.137 Ken Calder was shocked to hear inner group representatives maintain that since the NYPsaI was the best institute in the world with the largest number of candidates, there was no reason to spend any time on the recommendations. They did not recognise any problems. They felt that no help was needed.138

Further discussions were held between Moore, Brenner, Calder and Eugene Goldberg about how to implement some of the recommendations. Significantly, their discussions about institute succession and the appointment of training analysts resulted in the establishment of the Concerned Analysts, a reform group set up to challenge the autocratic and arbitrary system whereby the EC and its Chairman operated in secrecy far removed from the faculty-and the membership. The rift between the membership and the EC was nowhere clearer than in the inner group's stand that the autonomy of the faculty who taught the institute courses was under threat. Since the EC was the spokesman for the faculty, it seemed to follow that its autonomy needed to be preserved. However, the EC and the faculty often ended up at loggerheads with each other.

Nevertheless, there was one foil to the inner group's complete domination through the EC. Not surprisingly, it became the focus for the efforts of the opposition to the inner group. This was the institute's Board of Trustees which had final legal authority for the administrative, financial and educational affairs of the institute. It consisted of the institute officers and 12 elected members). The board ratified the major EC decisions, including training analyst appointment.139 Especially severe conflicts arose since the board did not accept the EC's right to recommend appointments to training analyst status to the board without presenting details or reasons.

During the early 1970s, the Board of Trustees successfully fought the EC when it acquired legal advice to the effect that as the final legal authority, the Board of Trustees, needed detailed information from the EC if it was to ratify recommendations for training analyst status.140 Influential on the Board of Trustees, the opposition countered the inner group's lawyers with its own lawyers who searched for loopholes in the bylaws and institutional aspects. But Eleanor Galenson regretted that five of her nine years on the Board of Trustees were too caught up with such issues141 while another long-standing board member remembered the general sense that board membership was 'an exercise in futility and a total waste of time. It was like group masturbation'.142

However, rigging elections was apparently not limited to the inner group. Norman Margolis described his experience in the late 1960s during his term on the Board of Directors of the NYPsaS which the opposition dominated. The bylaws provided for the appointment or election of the membership of the powerful Nominating Committee whose duty was to propose the slate from which officers were elected.143 Margolis recalled that the then president-a senior American analyst who became a prominent member of the opposition-made a great show of democratic sentiment by proposing an election so that younger people could be included. These younger members got the overwhelming number of votes and were declared the Nominating Committee. Then what the president described as 'an unfortunate mistake' was 'discovered'. It had just been noticed that the bylaws required that members of the Nominating Committee needed to be members of five years' standing. Therefore all but one of the younger members elected were ineligible and those older members who were friends of the president but got few votes were declared elected.144 The provision, accessible to all sides, was clearly spelt out in the bylaws and has not been changed to this day.145 However, Margolis maintained that in this case that the members of the board 'that the president and his appointed Nominating Committee knew all of this from the outset and thus manoeuvred people on to the board who would otherwise never have been elected by the general membership. In protest, all of us on the board demanded that there be a reelection with a valid slate, and if not we would resign en masse. The president relented and a new slate for election was presented to the membership'.146

The intensity of the battle was also reflected in events surrounding the election of presidential candidates in the NYPsaI election of Spring 1970 in which the candidates were Martin Stein and Isidor Silbermann. At the March meeting of the institute, the Chairman announced that he had received a letter from Nicholas Young and a telegram from Robert Bak (prominent members of the inner group) nominating Martin Stein as president. Charles Brenner then raised a point of order: the meeting could not proceed for lack of a quorum. However, Bak's telegram and Young's letter were read and Bak reiterated his desire to nominate Stein. The legal advice sought by the inner group maintained that the meeting was duly held and that Stein had been effectively nominated even in the absence of a quorum.147 The 1976 site visitors were to view this episode 'as a manifestation of the currents of divisive conflict of the time'.148

As psychoanalysis was losing its lustre and power across the US the struggles came to a head in the early 1970s in the context of profound dissatisfaction, supreme mistrust and lack of confidence in the activities of the leadership. The entrenched group, which determined committees and training analyst appointment, created a bottleneck stymieing the progression of potential competitors to training analyst status.149 Training analysts found it easier than others to survive financially as they could have candidates in analysis. However, they did not necessarily make much money from candidates-unless they were the full fee variety assigned to the inner group members.150

The appointment of two training analysts-wives of prominent inner group members-was the 'firecracker' that sparked open conflict between the membership and the EC and gave rise to the ensuing battle about what became known as 'the Brenner Amendment' (which I discuss below).151 Norman Margolis claimed that the appointments 'were made on the basis of merit but naturally the appearance of nepotism and convoying was fostered, the more so in the already heated-up political atmosphere over educational matters'.152 Galenson recalled that their appointment 'made it crystal clear that criteria for becoming a training analyst were nowhere to be found because these two people would hardly match the other people that should have been eligible'.153 In particular, the non-appointment of the much respected analyst, Herb Waldhorn (who shared offices with Charles Brenner and was close to Jacob Arlow and David Beres) at the same time as the appointment of the inner group members' wives caused upset. Competence did not seem a sufficient criterion-if Waldhorn had been married to a member of the inner group, it was felt he would have been appointed.154 Even allowing that the appointments of the wives were part of a larger group of appointments (an effort to clear a bottleneck that had developed when training analysts had not been appointed for many years),155 why was Waldhorn not appointed in that larger group? Waldhorn's non-appointment was a more important catalyst for unrest than the appointment of the wives.156 Appointments to training analyst status were notoriously politically motivated, products of cronyism more than ability.157 Something seemed rotten in the state of psychoanalysis and uproar broke out. This was not surprising since, as Manny Furer put it, the analysts at the NYPsaI were always a group of 'very individualistic individuals'.158

The Brenner amendment

As well as the group that evolved from the 1970 self-scrutiny exercise, another group of dissatisfied members discussed institute concerns over many years. This group included Jacob Arlow and Charles Brenner who influenced the generation of younger members through their work. Although not politically active, Arlow was much sought as a supervisor with the result that Arlow still had considerable influence.159 Brenner, a much-respected teacher at the NYPsaI and a national figure, suggested a significant bylaw change. Brenner's 1973 proposal attempted to change the way nominations were made to the EC, permitting open nominations from the membership at a NYPsaI Business Meeting in addition to nominations from the Instructors' Executive Committee. This would have allowed observation and participation from more members outside the self-perpetuating inner group would have opened the EC. It would help to demythologise the leadership and take the aura away from the group of training analysts meeting in secret. However, that mythology was helpful in accruing referrals and prestige.160

Over the following year a number of analysts began to meet in small groups. One such group included David Kairys (who taught at the NYPsaI), and others such as Galenson who taught on faculties outside the NYPsaI. They were united by concerns about the extreme inhibition of the residents who remained inhibited even after graduation as they waited for training analyst status that, like Godot, never came. By the end of 1972 there was a considerable number of active members of a coalesced opposition group which had been able to bring in those younger analysts not scared enough to join. Detailed tactical discussions ensued and a group of about 20 'Concerned Analysts' became active around the essential issue of the Brenner Amendment. (Although he was a member of the Concerned Analysts, Brenner did not attend their meetings). The Concerned Analysts were attempting to break up and question the power structure, to open and democratise the EC, to raise questions about using more analysts in teaching and administration and to challenge the way appointments were made.161

However, the inner group mounted an active campaign against the rebel group. Galenson recalled that the NYPsaI leaders attacked the opposition in a very nasty way, 'smears, things said about people's private lives. This was psychoanalysts supposedly acting on an intellectual level'. However, the opposition was well organised and sent out explanatory letters. Although the younger analysts were afraid to sign their names, many others were prepared to fight until the end. Meetings of 75-100 analysts were held in Galenson's 96th Street apartment. The insurgents believed they had a majority.162

Discussions about the 1973 Brenner Amendment completely dominated institute politics.163 Several institute meetings discussed the Brenner Amendment. Kurt Eissler, Nick Young, Peter Richter, Irwin and Rebecca Solomons, Norman Margolis, Martin Stein and Ed Kronold expressed vehement opposition to the proposed Amendment. Galenson recalled, 'Very, very nasty things were said in public at those meetings about the character of the people who were trying to get the Brenner Amendment through. Like they were just power-hungry or they were envious because they were not training analysts. There was really no scientific approach'.164

A remark by Norman Margolis really infuriated many members. Margolis asserted that the institute consisted of two sections-faculty with a loyal alumni (the membership).165 Margolis recalled that it struck him 'as a very bad idea that the general membership should have ready access of shaping educational policies and decisions by being able to nominate members for the key EC'. For Margolis it was 'a clear issue of faculty autonomy and academic freedom' as against the danger of politicizing academic policy'. Margolis recalled referring to the inherent contradictions in the NYPsaI/NYPsaS organisational structure since everyone was both a member of the membership organisation and of an educational institution. 'Whereas membership organisations should be run democratically, educational policy and organisation should not and could not function optimally as a democracy which is prone to be buffeted by political forces. I stated my opinion that when it comes to educational policy we should view ourselves as members, like an alumni organisation, who support their alma mater, but who have no direct influence on the shaping and execution of educational policy. These are the purview of the faculty, as they are in any university meeting'. Margolis was labelled as just as elitist as the in group members.166

However, nobody on either side agreed with Margolis's analogy.167 For the membership of the institute and the society was identical. Graduates of the NYPsaI were not alumni since they automatically became members of the society and, unlike alumni, then automatically members of the institute and could hold office in both. Alumni usually go to other places to work than after graduating from their alma mater. The institute was supported by the members' dues as well as tuition, which became less and less if student numbers declined. The members were the future teachers and training analysts as these were drawn from the membership, not from a field beyond the institute.168 Moreover, members of psychoanalytic societies were not just out of medical school By the time they graduated from the NYPsaI they were Assistant or Associate Professors at Medical Schools with a decade of analytic training beyond their psychiatry boards-they were not ready to be treated like children at the NYPsaI.169 In this context the dichotomy between democratic sentiment versus expertise is misleading. The Brenner Amendment did not propose a take-over of the EC but the election of some representatives from the membership to act as watchdogs.

The opposition made frantic telephone calls to ensure that analysts turned up to vote for the Brenner Amendment. In the opposition's calculations the amendment would pass. However, they had not counted on five last minute defections.170 On January 16, 1973 the amendment was defeated even though a clear majority was in favour. With a vote of 166 in favour to 101 against, the proposed amendment narrowly failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required for the passage of an amendment to the bylaws. A year later it failed again with 156 in favour, 101 against.171 Although by that time several of the opposition were elected to the governing body of the NYPsaI, the Board of Trustees, the rancour did not subside. Galenson recalled the meetings of that period as awful and full of name-calling (a member of the inner group calling her a liar). Because of the closeness of the vote the inner group was concerned that the opposition would try to pass the Brenner Amendment again. Over the next two years every meeting of the Board of Directors and the Board of Trustees became an acrimonious battleground. Norman Margolis viewed the fact that the Brenner Amendment did not succeed after so many years of effort as 'a testament to our general membership's dedication to, and conviction as to what sound psychoanalytic education should be'.172 This remark should be seen in the context of the fact that the Brenner Amendment always passed the simple majority test and only failed because its passage required a two-thirds majority vote. This two-thirds majority voting system provoked much hostility and the sense of unfairness of the majority not winning a vote had a strong impact on the society. Calder recalled that those around Brenner were 'very much hurt that a simple majority did not win the votes in the Brenner Amendment'.173 Although constitutions do generally require more than a simple majority of those voting to pass an amendment,174 it is also true that this was seen as constituting just one more obstacle keeping the majority from having power in their organisation.

As a result of the close vote an Ad Hoc committee was appointed to find a compromise solution to involve some representation of the general membership on the EC. This committee reported to the Board of Trustees who could not reach sufficient consensus to recommend an amendment to the membership.175 In a minority report of the Ad Hoc committee Lawrence Roose argued,

I believe that this committee's discussions foundered on the mistaken belief that if the entire membership of our institute would have any real influence on the EC the membership would neither nominate nor vote for talented candidates dedicated to the highest standards of psychoanalysis. I reject this thesis as not worthy of our membership. Certain notions seem to have achieved the status of unquestionable facts. To my mind a myth has been created: the autonomy of the faculty must be preserved. Since the EC is a spokesman for the faculty, its autonomy must also be preserved. I know of no other institution in which a committee of that institution is answerable to no one but itself.

Roose stated further, 'The main thesis of the minority report is that the EC must directly be accountable to the Board of Trustees and ultimately to the membership of the institute'.176 The EC used the autonomy argument to counter any reform proposals. The minority report emphasised that the EC must be directly accountable to the institute's board of Trustees and therefore ultimately to the membership of the institute.177 A letter from a number of opposition members stated,

We feel that legitimate concern for faculty autonomy has been converted into a position that would continue to deny meaningful input into educational matters by the general membership. We feel that the general membership desires faculty autonomy but is increasingly impatient with a committee structure, which is self-perpetuating, and to a great extent only answerable to itself.178

Another board committee had already presented its conflicting recommendations to no avail. After an unsuccessful meeting on September 25, 1975 where there had been some hope of agreement, the problem was returned to the membership for a solution.179

The 1976 site visit

The next significant milestone came with the routine 1976 regular APsaA site visit to the NYPsaI. Site visits are regularly undertaken by a committee of the APsaA to each affiliated institute in an attempt to ensure uniformity of standards, assess problems in the institute and help the institute overcome problems from an outside perspective. The site visitors, who met with both sides, found it difficult to ascertain the nature of the issues. However, they detected that there was a self-perpetuating hierarchy ruling the institute.180

In a letter representing 'Some Concerned Members of the NYPsaI' (signed by Stuart Asch and others) the opposition communicated the undesirable state of the institute to the site visitors. According to the letter, the institute was divided into two groups. Group I consisting of about 30 training analysts and non training analysts constituted about a third of the institute while Group II composed of about 13 training analysts and other non training analysts represented almost two thirds of the institute membership. From the mid-1960s Group I started nominating, electing and appointing its members to administrative and educational positions and not appointing Group II members. Group II resented being excluded and organised politically. Opposition spread to the general membership and played a role in supporting the Brenner Amendment and the rights of the Board of Trustees over the EC. Asch maintained that the opposition between the two groups was harmful because of the amount of time and energy wasted in political conflict and the level of factional considerations in elections.

In a prepared statement, Charles Brenner told the 1976 APsaA site visitors that the institute was dominated by a small group representing the majority of training analysts but only a small minority of the institute membership. The choice and appointment of training analysts, he maintained, relied on cronyism.181

The 1976 site visitors noted the severe financial crisis of the institute that had moved from a $4,000 deficit in 1966 to a $55,000 deficit in 1976. Members could not ignore the contrast between their large contributions through dues and assessments that saved and financed the institute and their lack of power in the institute, a situation that made for inevitable conflict.182

The site visitors lamented the polarisation and the dissipation of energy into areas outside the educational and scientific calling of the institute which resulted in 'potentially internecine conflict'. They declared, 'As psychoanalysts, we believe that the issues discussed with such intensity may also indicate that personal, emotionally invested issues are at stake. It also seemed to the members of the Site Visit Subcommittee that there were no crucial or substantive scientific issues at stake, and that there were no fundamental differences with regard to the practice and theory of psychoanalysis'.

The site visitors held a meeting with representatives of the ruling group who responded to the opposition's claims. The ruling group maintained that they did not see themselves as a partisan political group but as institute members who through their experience and positions intimately knew the institute's educational policies and procedures. They opposed the Brenner Amendment and to any motion which would make it possible for the membership rather than the faculty to control the educational arm of the institute. This, they believed, would undermine faculty autonomy and academic freedom. They noted that the 'Concerned Members' at no time criticised educational policies or their implementation. Moreover, the membership had some representation on the EC via the ex officio EC membership of the president, vice-president and secretary of the institute. The Board of Trustees approved the major decisions of the EC. Further, a number of co-signers of the Concerned Members letter were members of the EC and Board of Trustees. Some taught in the institute and several analysts associated with the Concerned group had recently been appointed as training analysts. Therefore, the ruling group's representatives maintained that the allegations of exclusion and lack of participation were unfounded.183 Norman Margolis claimed he had never seen evidence of authoritarianism or cronyism from with Group 1 analysts. But given the manipulations on the Board of Trustees described by Margolis above, insofar as there was any substance to the charges, he claimed that 'it seemed like a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black. In fact, in my time, some of the people most accused of authoritarianism introduced a number of key changes in Educational and faculty procedures when they were chairmen of those bodies'. Moreover, some Group I members felt, according to Margolis, that 'the Group II members who were advocating 'democratisation', e.g. by including candidates on key committees, did not understand how this would compromise and complicate these candidates' transference in their own training analysis, and thus maybe they really didn't understand transference, a keystone of psychoanalysis'.184

However, what upset the membership was not whether or not the inner group was superior to Group II since Group I clearly included some of the most talented and committed analysts at the NYPsaI. The membership felt that major issues were obscured in the ruling group's defence of the status quo-issues about where the real power lay and how it was exercised by the ruling group. The opposition's criticisms of cronyism, autocracy, domination and installing fear and conformism among candidates struck at the heart of the educational system. The insurgents had turned to the membership because they could not influence the EC through the existing channels.

However, in the opinion of Norman Margolis, the charges by Group II were not substantive. 'Whenever changes came about they would say it was only under pressure, while at the same time paradoxically maintaining that the 'powers' were unresponsive. We, who were called Group I, believed that the '76 Site Visit concurred with our views of the way educational policies should be made and carried out. The most important conclusion was that our educational program adhered to the highest standards'.

The site visitors piously hoped that the conflicts would be resolved within the next decade: 'New York psychoanalysts will once more engage with one another on issues of scientific substance as a primary concern'.185 However, they did not indicate how this was to be achieved. They accepted the ruling group's declarations about faculty autonomy without considering why the opposition group had resorted to consulting the membership: because there was no democratic method in the institute, given the entrenched cronyism of the self-perpetuating inner group. Aside from the proposition that individual analysts analyse their own motives, the only solution proffered was the ideal separation of society and institute, something that would have made no contribution to ameliorating the NYPsaI problems complained of by the opposition. The site visitors did not address the cronyism issue or the reasons behind the fact that members with a national reputation felt like outsiders at the NYPsaI. In short, the site visit report was a very 'political' document that dodged substantial issues necessitating urgent remedy.

The site visitors advanced only one issue to help comprehend the troubles-the size of the NYPsaI. With a membership of 300 and a faculty of 99 the NYPsaI there were 'many fine people who were eligible for faculty status and for training analyst appointments and probably would be appointed in other institutes. Emotional issues over being excluded are thus bound to arise. Those invested with power are bound to feel that they want to hang on to it and implement their views'.

However, this argument is not really borne out by the history of psychoanalytic institutes: small institutes can and have been fierce battlegrounds while larger institutes can function well. The site visitors' statement avoided the question of how training analyst positions were distributed, whether fairly or through cronyism. It did not address the poisoning of the atmosphere, by the appointment of training analysts who were not seen to be among the best qualified. As Elliot Jacques has pointed out, in order to function well organisations must promote confidence and trust and need to be organised so as not to produce systematic paranoia and mistrust.186

The site visitors suggested that 'educational matters should be left to the faculty rather than to the membership. In this regard, the institute should resemble a university in which educational matters are decided by faculty rather than by trustees, former graduates or members'.187 However, if a university were governed the way the NYPsaI was run, there would be a strong case for intervention. Moreover, other institutes, such as the Boston Psychoanalytic, had non training analysts on their Education Committees to no ill effect-training analysts do not need to make all the educational decisions.188

The site visit report described the NYPsaI in devastating terms. Why did they not suggest taking some action by the APsaA to improve the situation? (As will be seen, such a course was suggested in the case of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute). Given the pervasive mythology about the NYPsaI, perhaps it was unthinkable for the site visitors to low-rate the premier APsaA institute. Moreover, given the power of the NYPsaI within the APsaA at the time, such a move could not have aided the careers within the APsaA of anybody involved in such a recommendation.

Moreover, in this difficult situation, why did the 'Concerned members' not break away and form their own institute as so many before them had done in the psychoanalytic field? Or resign and join Columbia or another institute? (A few did join Columbia but most did not). Why did they go to so much trouble to try to gain a voice? They were certainly greatly invested in the NYPsaI, most having trained there and being involved in the work of the institute. Perhaps they were just as enamoured of the NYPsaI reputation as their opponents were.

At all events, both sides rightly sensed that the Brenner Amendment had major symbolic significance: the move to open the EC to outsiders would be a transgressive act tantamount to breaking a spell.

During a time of increasing financial stringency, there was much enthusiasm for setting up a Psychoanalytic Foundation to support the NYPsaI with a lay Board of Trustees that would help with fund-raising.189 Both the Board of Directors of the NYPsaS and the Board of Trustees unanimously supported the proposal but in a major turnaround, the level of support dropped considerably (although there was still majority support). Through the EC, the inner group was pre-eminent in labelling the proposal as violating psychoanalytic principles, and much bitterness, acrimony and divisiveness were aroused.

Legal issues

Major legal proceedings issued from two lawsuits brought against the institute which almost brought it to bankruptcy. The large financial threat to the NYPsaI from these lawsuits brought about increased unrest from the membership who resented greatly increased taxation without effective representation.

One drawn-out case that lasted from 1979 until 1982 involved a Ph.D. in psychology who was accepted by the EC for analytic training and was told so unofficially by a member. Allegedly out of consideration for the health of the applicant who had a history of Hodgkin's disease, the EC then changed its mind and rejected the application. It was felt that a profound depression that could be experienced during a training analysis might affect her immune system and exacerbate her illness. The institute claimed that she was rejected because of 'disqualifying psychopathology'. During the litigation her lawyer and the Human Rights Commission asked to see the minutes of meetings involving not only the applicant but those of all other research applicants to ensure that she was treated in the same way as they were. The institute refused to do so on the grounds of 'irreparable breach of confidentiality between applicants and institute', and that it would 'compromise the human rights of students and faculty in favour of the alleged rights of the rejected applicant'. The case was settled (with a payment by the NYPsaI to her of $150,000 to cover her legal fees) and she was admitted. The applicant became healthy as her disease was self-limiting.190 She is now a member of the faculty, having encountered no difficulty, and is a much-respected teacher.191

The other case was brought against the institute and her supervisors at around the same time by a candidate who was not allowed to graduate. In 12 years of training the candidate, the wife of an analyst, claimed that her supervisors had not informed her of the severity of their reservations about her work. Ken Calder, however, claimed that three supervisors voiced some reservations with which he as the fourth concurred. Where social and professional relationships are involved, it can be difficult to be completely open and frank in making critical appraisals.192 While the plaintiff did not graduate after losing the case (the court regarded the NYPsaI as the experts on psychoanalytic education who were competent to decide whom they graduated), it cost the NYPsaI another $100,000.¹⁹³

The 1983 site visit

In 1983 the next APsaA site visitors heard identical complaints about the method of appointing training analysts in a generally deteriorating situation at the NYPsaI. These complaints came from analysts who felt, in the site visitors' words, that 'evaluation on clinical grounds rather than what they consider a more mysterious process of reputation, would be more convincing to them as a fair and appropriate judgement'. That reputation was central for an analyst to be brought to the attention of those making the appointments of training analysts. According to the site visitors, some therefore experienced the necessity of contriving some way

to come to the attention of a senior colleague for the purpose of being 'tapped'. The words 'mystery' and 'mystique' frequently came up pejoratively in this connection. Some felt the current system might unwittingly advance the former outstanding candidate whose later work has quietly faltered, and penalise the former less promising candidate who has quietly grown in clinical abilities in the years after graduation. The alternative routes of self nomination or knowledge that systematic review of the appropriate pool of possible nominees is performed, might be helpful to the low morale situation, as well as possibly unearthing potential nominees currently overlooked.

Study groups were seen by some, the site visitors reported, 'as an obligatory step toward advancement in the institute hierarchy by propitiating "the powers that be". The opinion exists that certain study groups are particularly helpful stepping stones toward training analyst appointment'.

Deploring the 'extraordinary situation' at the NYPsaI the site visitors wanted to address the 'full magnitude and seriousness of the problems'. They found that 'complaints of a sense of constriction of independent thinking and initiative were ubiquitous' together with a 'pressure toward obedience' and an 'atmosphere of fearfulness'. A wide spectrum of candidates and students told the site visitors of a 'monolithic atmosphere' and a 'climate of fear of the power and influence of senior analysts'. Some senior training analysts had an 'intimidating style' which was 'demoralizing' and 'crushing to initiative' and which 'handicaps free discussion of certain issues on their merits'. An 'atmosphere of intimidation' was described of a 'monolithic' organisation in which even training analysts could 'live in fear of "stepping out of line", "hitting one's head against the ceiling", "stirring things up", etc.'. The atmosphere was often reported to the site visitors as having 'to do with "puzzle", "mystery" and complaints that analytic anonymity and passivity are carried inappropriately into the area of education. More than one student or young analyst described the training atmosphere as "like one big analytic hour". Students complained to us with some frequency of coldness and remoteness of the institute, and of what they took to be failures to communicate or an unnecessary abruptness and tastelessness of certain communications'.194 This needs to be seen in the context of the 'widening scope' of psychoanalysis which challenged orthodox concepts and was already taking place across the US.

A survey on the morale of the NYPsaI presented to the Board of Trustees in February 1983 by board member Francis Baudry had revealed 'significant malaise and discontent' among the membership. While problems in institutes in other cities were similar to those of the NYPsaI since there were insufficient candidates and patients, NYPsaI members were upset about particular problems at their institute. These issues were: the senior analysts who died but had left no bequests to the institute, the fact that most non-faculty but few faculty had paid a voluntary assessment, that there were 35 resignations since 1976 and that only one student enrolled at the NYPsaI in contrast with ten at the Columbia Institute. Moreover, a two-tier system of training analysts and non-training analysts resulted in a 'widespread feeling that there are "ins" and "outs". Those who are not training analysts are sometimes regarded as "second class citizens". Some interviewees considered the system of selection of training analysts as inequitable and spoke of possible nepotism. They mentioned specifically that the wives of two training analysts have been appointed to the faculty in recent years'. Many analysts believed that the institute was 'run by a small cohort'. The feeling that the institute atmosphere was unfriendly and too formal was widespread and that the broad talents of the large membership were not sufficiently used in teaching and committee responsibilities. Baudry concluded that the current secret system of selecting training analysts was 'deleterious'. Responding with a spontaneous round of applause, the board discussed the importance of changing the system of selecting training analysts.195

The 1983 site visitors noted the 'contentious atmosphere', in which the polarisation was so extreme that any move was seen to 'advantage' one side and 'disadvantage' another in a 'lamentable climate of political score keeping'. Those in the middle felt left out-one analyst remarked, 'I was apolitical-people didn't want me. I was of no interest to anyone'. 'Power alignments and territorial considerations' always invaded discussions on the appointment of training analysts. When a 1983 meeting of the Board of Trustees authorised the president to appoint his own study committee into training analyst appointment, issues of jurisdiction were raised and a legal memorandum was produced. The site visitors regarded the intrusion of the jurisdictional matters between the EC and the Board of Trustees as 'symptomatic of how serious and how intrusive the politicisation of educational matters has become at the New York Institute. When issues of turf in such ways take precedence over issues of substance as the focus, the creative energies of the governing bodies of the institute are drained'. Many found it difficult to make an objective appraisal of the NYPsaI's severe financial problems since such an appraisal was 'impeded by its having been caught up in the undercurrent of political conflicts. Financial difficulties can be maximized to embarrass an opponent, or minimized to defend oneself against the accusation'. Over the past few years the resignations of 40-50 members disaffected by the process had led to further erosion of the NYPsaI's finances-and of the finances of those of its members who were asked for higher dues and additional assessment. Morale was low. The site visitors noted the 'unwillingness to listen to colleagues and felt that the detailed corrections of minutes at the beginnings of meetings in preparation for the next major confrontation indicated despair. The site visitors found drain of energies in 'painful to see'. The importance of unassailable written records indicated how deep-seated was the conviction that the other side was untrustworthy: A routine procedure would be transformed into a 'vehicle for perpetuating differences rather than resolving them'. The political climate was marked by a debater form of discussion, in which faculty members would fight with each other for every inch of ground, 'winning' arguments, but leaving colleagues feeling that though they may have been bested in argument, they may not have been truly heard'. The complaint of not feeling heard, the site visitors observed, had grown from a 'whisper' in the 1966 site visit report to a 'crescendo' from candidates to training analysts.

The site visitors were distressed by the 'unrelieved intensity and the unrelenting draining aspect' of institute life which was reported to them from all sides. They counselled separating ad hominem argument from core educational issues such as the appointment of training analysts. The site visitors wondered whether the style of the towering figures in the past set the style of settling disputes by the fiat of a senior analyst. With the continuing passing of the Olympian figures, would an attempt be made to resolve things in a different fashion?

The previous few years had seen small changes in the way training analysts were appointed. Nominations could come from the whole training analyst group instead of just the EC. The site visitors suggested two further steps for consideration: self-nomination and an automatic review of those who eligible for consideration.

Another element in the power equation concerned the role and power of the director of the NYPsaI Treatment Center that offered low cost analyses by candidates in training under supervision. Holding the only paid job in the institute and being the only officer routinely available to staff and graduates, the Director of the Treatment Center was in a very powerful position. The divisions within the NYPsaI helped transform substantive matters about patient selection into ad hominem arguments about a challenge to George Gross, a reportedly formidable personality who held office as Medical Director of the Treatment Center since 1974.196 Personality factors were important since the Directorship of the Treatment Center had not led other incumbents to power in the NYPsaI.197 Gross continued as Director well after his term of office expired in 1979 because legalities were ignored.198 From the early 1980s Gross became president of the Board of Trustees and exercised a good deal of influence over the board which became increasingly filled with non training analysts with no power base of their own.199

The site visitors stressed an important structural point. The payment of large dues by the membership 'to support a training program from which many feel excluded, naturally may arouse resentments, and may serve, as well, as a ready avenue for the expression of conflicts or grievances whose origins may lie elsewhere'. (Several members had suggested that an organisational change was necessary to solve the NYPsaI's problems. While the NYPsaI might pursue such changes, any institute structure had defects. Good will and cooperativeness were needed. The site visitors maintained,

It is this focus on communality of purpose which we feel has been eroded, or damaged, or lost somewhere along the line at the New York Institute. The ideal of outstanding training and clinical practice of psychoanalysis remains strongly held, but firmly drawn sides and a contentious adversarial approach to issues dims, we fear, that communality of purpose. Attempts to reorganize the institute structure along more efficient lines would themselves be so vulnerable to these intra-organizational pressures as to make such a move more likely the result, rather than the precondition, of resolution of the institute's current struggles. The visitors were impressed that what we saw in these controversies seemed not be truly fundamental ideological differences, divergent schools of psychoanalytic thought, such as have fueled internal organizational struggles in other institutes. What we saw and reviewed in the documents of the New York Institute seemed to come closer to what Freud (and some institute members) referred to as the narcissism of minor differences, compounded by wounded feelings stemming from long series of conflicts with which members of the institute have long been familiar.200

Despite its devastating descriptions of life at the NYPsaI, the site visitors did not address the structural issues which were clearly crucially important. . Why was there lack of good will? Was there an agglomeration of personal problems or a problem structured into the organization. Why was it not clear that the lack of good will emanated from significant structural issues? That the highly politicised exclusion of most of the highly taxed and under-represented members who were not supporters of the inner group from training analyst selection and status naturally created ill feeling and resentment? Or that efficient organisation with community of purpose and good will would only take place with the institution of significant structural change? Moreover, there was never any hint of intervention in the affairs of the NYPsaI from the APsaA as there had been in other institutes such as the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute which was almost closed down at the same time of the last site visit in 1976.

A 1986 New York article quoted NYPsaI members pointing to major tensions in the NYPsaI under the rule of a self-perpetuating establishment.201 The article reported that the power group had kept the 1983 site visit report from the membership of the NYPsaI. This was, according to Jay Shorr who led the NYPsaI's committee for the site visit, because it contained 'substantial errors and unsubstantiated allegations'. However, the Board of Trustees refused to accept this refusal and voted on January 26, 1984 to see the report. The refusal of Shorr and the EC to comply caused a fury. Arthur Root observed that the 1976 Report had been distributed with more alleged errors than were claimed for the 1983 report, so that was no reason to keep it secret. Meanwhile, the site visitors were upset that APsaA officials rewrote the report, softening it and admitting certain mistakes. The revised report was made available to the membership in August 1984. Even in 1986, the NYPsaI remained guarded about that report and allowed New York to see only the last three pages of the report.202

In an already polarised institute, the shroud of secrecy around the machinations of the power group increased the alienation of the membership. In no other institute during my research for this book did I hear those with power referred to so frequently as 'they'. The EC remained controlled by an oligarchy with, according to one analyst, 'coteries, little protégés and people who are hangers-on'.203 The fact that, even into the 1990s, a number of NYPsaI analysts requested anonymity for this book, is an index of the depth of ingrained alienation and lack of trust. The NYPsaI was the only institute where there were any such requests. The reluctance of establishment figures at the NYPsaI to go on the record was noted by a journalist for the magazine, New York in 1986. They told her that public discourse would interfere with their relationships with patients. However, she found a number of other analysts (who also had patients) who were willing to speak their minds.204 None of the hundreds of analysts I have interviewed for this book ever raised such an issue with me. The only consistent refusals to be interviewed came from some who had been members of the inner group of the NYPsaI.

Changes

As Manuel Furer, Chair of the EC (1983-89), maintained, a 'sea change' in the atmosphere of the NYPsaI occurred in the early 1980s: 'It was recognized that we had to increase the participation of our members, both faculty and non-faculty, to open pathways for involvement and advancement that were perceived to be closed or mysteriously complex. We had to rekindle the conviction that the institute is a valuable place to which to devote one's energies. The hallmark of this effort became self-nomination'.205

On January 20, 1983 the Board of Trustees appointed a committee (chaired by liberal analyst Arthur Root) which investigated procedures for improving training analyst selection.206 While set up by the Board of Trustees, Root treated it as a wider Committee of the institute, obtaining the cooperation of the Chairman of the EC, Manny Furer.207 The important measure recommended by this committee was that training analyst status was to be based on two central principles: self-nomination and a review of current practice and capacities in psychoanalysis.208 Based on self-sponsorship, two written cases of current analytic work, and oral presentations on two cases to consultant training analysts, the appointments were to be made more on merit than through the cronyism that had prevailed. In the euphoric atmosphere engendered by the victory over the Board of Trustees, the EC under Manny Furer was able to introduce some important changes.209 The recommended measures210 were adopted by the EC in May 1986. 'This action', the Newsletter commented, 'culminates many years of discussion and debate concerning elements of subjectivity and "closednesss" which many members felt had marked the previous procedures for selection'.211

During the mid-1980s George Gross and the Board of Trustees had aimed for the democratic appointment of Training Analysts through an open procedure with self-nomination and presentation. It was only after Gross left the scene and was no longer president that the things he sought were instituted--self-nomination and presentation for training analyst selection. The substantive procedural changes in the way both training analysts and faculty were appointed made access more open and democratic, removing the prevailing cronyism.

With the change to self-nomination for training analyst appointment together with democratisation of the institute with clear procedures, morale markedly improved, especially since the old fights dwindled with major issues accomplished.212 Jacob Arlow considered that the NYPsaI situation was 'tremendously improved' having 'really turned a corner', the situation had become 'quite harmonious, free of any personal or doctrinaire quarrels'.213 Arnold Richards could claim with some reason that the NYPsaI became 'more democratic and less authoritarian' than some other major psychoanalytic institutes in the New York area-Columbia, NYU, IPTAR and the William Alanosn White Institute.214 There was also a major shift in administrative faculty positions toward a younger group.215

While Furer was one of a number of analysts who brought about change,216 his own considerable role led Arnold Richards to label him as the 'Menachim Begin