Psychoanalysis in the American Psychological Association

The large conference room at the Washington Hilton was packed and I was nervous as I stood waiting to be videotaped in a mock interview for television on the topic of psychoanalysis. It was the 1998 Division Leadership Conference of the American Psychological Association (APA), and as the newly minted President-Elect of the Division of Psychoanalysis I was learning more details about my 155,000-member organization than I ever wanted to know. Media training was one of the areas that the parent organization wanted its future leaders to be savvy to, and given my strong belief that one learns by doing, I volunteered to be interviewed in front of my 52 colleagues and the

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hierarchy of the APA. Other than the personal agenda of developing media skills, I had another one.

My second agenda was to put a human face on psychoanalysis for the numerous academics in the room. In an effort to make me feel more comfortable, the media trainer gave me the option to be interviewed on any topic I wished. I chose “Psychoanalysis Today,” in accordance with my second agenda. I knew that my fellow psychologists, most of who were academics, really had no conception of psychoanalysis beyond its allegedly being an outmoded form of expensive therapy with all kinds of intellectual baggage.

As we began the videotaping, I realized that the trainer’s plan was to put me trough a hostile interview. I could sense that my audience was sympathetic to my plight. The media trainer was brutal, for reasons other than pedagogy I was sure. She attacked psychoanalysis, its premises, and its costs. After the first couple of jabs I recovered and did what I was taught earlier, that is, to not answer hostile questions, to lead the interviewer to where I wanted to go, to talk in simple sound bits, to look at the camera and not the interviewer, and to keep a positive attitude. How I managed to say anything coherent is beyond even my Homeric pride. Yet, what struck me most about the whole experience was what my peers said during the processing session after the taping. Many admitted to being ignorant of any new developments in psychoanalysis and the varied populations we work with. They were glad that Woody Allen is really not a testimonial to the efficacy of clinical psychoanalysis. Further, they were surprised that the data in support of the concept of unconscious processes generated from the laboratory alone are massive. “It’s not so exotic,” said one experimental psychologist.

Within the world’s largest psychology organization, the APA, psychoanalysis is becoming less exotic. It not only boasts a 4,000-member division, but also has been recognized as a formal specialty, and a psychoanalyst can become “Board Certified” as an advanced clinician by the American Board of Professional Psychology. It is the practice agenda of the APA, that is, the commitment to the independent practitioner and clinician, which has supported these advances. This, despite the fact that many of the academics at the conference were quite ignorant of psychoanalysis. Perhaps their ignorance had to do with some outdated definitions of the arts and sciences, scholarly snobbishness, and some real problems, both political and intellectual.

Higher education and psychoanalysis have had a tricky history right from the start. Freud may have liked to be called “Herr Professor,” but he held no academic posts. For decades to come, psychoanalysts enjoyed respect from their informed peers for their clinical writings, but the academics, who tended to be empiricists, remained skeptical. A quick glance at current introductory psychology textbooks can lead one to think that psychoanalysis is simply a failed 19th-century form of treatment with a dubious scientific basis. True, many literature departments have an intellectual interest in psychoanalysis, but the reality is that they are few and far between. Of course, we must not forget that psychoanalysts often referred to the academics as “rat psychologists.” Given this mutual derisiveness, we can begin to understand why the majority of psychoanalytic training programs are freestanding outside of university settings.

Progress is being made with the Education Directorate of the APA, some new introductions to psychology textbooks are beginning to note the advances in psychoanalysis, and researchers are starting to alter their views of psychoanalysis as voodoo. My belief is that real change in the relationship between the academy and psychoanalysis is taking place. The energy, goodwill, and resourcefulness of both houses are necessary. After all, psychology continues to be one of the most popular undergraduate majors in college.

Recently, a college senior taking a course I teach titled “Music, Culture, and the Creative Process” on the activist Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, said that my course was about more than its title and the composer. “It’s about understanding passion and revolutionary character,” she asserted. She then said that passion was never directly addressed in any of her liberal arts studies. To paraphrase Auden, psychoanalysis reminds us to be enthusiastic about passion.

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