Barrier Busting
Barrier busting is a business term recently used by Amory Lovins*, an energy wizard and CEO of the Rocky Mt. Institute. He is referring to the need for all those concerned with oil consumption and alternative energy to work together towards a solution. I applaud this concept as it relates to psychoanalysis as well. Psychoanalysis needs to bust barriers too.
The richness of this profession is due to the mix of psychoanalysts, some with doctorates and many without. Exclusionary practices are damaging this profession. Case in point: Today I received an invitation to a meeting
NEW PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES ON PREJUDICE
Making a Difference in Society
A Conference for the Application of Psychoanalysis to Problems in Society
Co Sponsored by the Harry Stack Sullivan Society,
William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Society, and
Contemporary Psychoanalysis
A conference on prejudice that clearly excludes clinical social workers on its program and on its planning committee – people who have earned the right to practice psychoanalysis, and who have made major contributions to this profession – is misguided and divisive.
My hope, in this short essay, is first of all to educate those who are prejudiced against masters level social work psychoanalysts and lay analysts, and secondly, along the same lines, to make a plea that we respect and listen to diverse points of view from different disciplines.
Anyone who embraces psychoanalytic work knows how difficult and rewarding it can be. Putting energy into turf wars is draining and takes away the chance to learn from each other. Discrimination persists now because of status issues, as the world of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy becomes increasingly stratified under economic pressure. But now is a time to join together as we have much to share.
The exclusionary practices that permeate this profession are diminishing as the American Psychoanalytic Association has extended the opportunity for MSW social workers to study at 28 out of 30 of its institutes across the country, the only hold outs being Columbia and NY Psychoanalytic Institute. Interestingly, the institutes in New York, a city known for its sophistication and acceptance of otherness, are continuing their exclusionary practices. Along with these two APsaA institutes, both WAW and NYU Post Doctoral admit only those with PhDs or MDs.
Other institutes are flourishing. Those affiliated with a group called NAAP, and the two IPA institutes in New York, NYFS and IPTAR, attract candidates every year. So the competition is great and the interest in psychoanalysis is alive and well.
Why are masters level social workers discriminated against? Some feel that a doctorate is proof of scholarship. I wish to challenge that thinking by presenting my credentials and those of many colleagues, but first a few words about the impact social work school made on me.
The first thing one learns in social work is: Be with the patient (Be where the patient’s at). It is this message that continues to ring in our ears. Not distracted by anatomy, diagnosis, prognosis, testing, and other evaluatory methods of looking at people (although many social workers are adept at using the medical model), social work education focuses on the individual. At least it used to. Nowadays, I hear that Freud is shunned and this is all the more reason to include social workers in our institutes. Those of you who have heard of and read Patrick Casement, Joyce Edwards, Jean Sanville and others from social work backgrounds will understand my plea for respect. Let me name a few others without degrees in psychology or medicine, people who enriched psychoanalysis and who today would be rejected by the four training institutes heretofore mentioned: Lou Andreas Salome, Marie Bonaparte, Hans Sachs, August Aichhorn, Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, Erik Erikson, Ernst Kris, Otto Rank, Robert Waelder, Beta Bornstein, Betty Joseph, Martin Bergmann, Anni Bergman and the list goes on.
Psychiatrists and psychologists are trained differently. Diagnostic testing and research are the expertise of psychologists and medicine belongs to physicians. Both stress diagnosis. Diagnosis is not a psychoanalytic concept. Anna Freud said in her Adult Diagnostic Profile that the diagnosis could only come at the end of a psychoanalysis. (1965). A real psychoanalyst is a listener, not a measurer. The more we listen, the more we learn and as Ella Sharpe (1950) said:
The fundamental interest of a would-be [clinician] must be in people’s lives and thoughts. The dross of the infantile super-ego in that fundamental interest must by analysis be purged. The urgency to reform, to correct, to make different, motivates the task of a reformer or educator. The urgency to cure motivates the physician. A deep-seated interest in people’s lives and thoughts must in a psycho-analyst have been transformed into an insatiable curiosity which, while having its recognizable unconscious roots, is free in consciousness to range over every field of human experience and activity, free to recognize every unconscious impulse, with only one urgency, namely, a desire to know more and still more about the psychical mechanism involved. …. When we come to a habit of thought, a type of experience, to which we reply: ‘I cannot understand how a person can think like that or behave like this,’ then we cease to be clinicians. Curiosity has ceased to be benevolent.” [my underlining]
My education did not end with my social work degree. I attended two post graduate institutes. At The Institute for the Study of Psychotherapy my teachers were Gertrude and Reuben Blank and Donald Kaplan. That two year program focused on psychotherapy with the less structured or so called borderline and narcissistic patient, and added two years for psychoanalysis. At the same time I attended the New York Freudian Society. When I graduated from both programs, I continued my studies for 10 years in ongoing seminars with Martin Bergman, William Grossman, Gertrude Blank, Margaret Mahler, Jacob Arlow, and David Milrod. I continued my supervision until I had terminated two cases.
I am certainly not alone. My social work colleagues did not, as a rule, go on for doctorates as there were no clinical doctorate programs in New York and they preferred, as did I, to learn their craft from the masters. I wonder how many PhDs and MDs studied in the depth and breadth that we did.
Psychoanalysis is losing its place in universities and in the culture and it needs to tackle the problem by barrier busting – by working in concert and by shunning isolation. Think of all the energy we could harness – energy now spent on separating each other by using degrees and theoretical dissonance to keep us apart.
TEAM, the logo of the annual Psychoanalytic Education Conference stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. At the conference last year, all kinds of analysts met and found that they could indeed share ideas. Representatives from all societies, institutes, including the American Psychoanalytic Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, along with the Jungians and Adlerians came together for two days and listened to each other respectfully. Everyone felt hopeful because they felt respected and included.
I end with a plea for real non discriminatory practices. At this time in history we must reach out to all interested in psychoanalytic work. At this time in history we must understand that no one has a corner on talent and the quest for knowledge. At this time in history we must be grateful for creative ideas, and new energy.
Jane S. Hall, Psychoanalyst
(Thanks to Arnie Richards and Kenneth Eisold for suggestions.)
References:
Freud, A., Nagera, H., and Freud, W.E. (1965). Metaphysical assessment of the adult personality. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 20:9-41. NY: IUP.
Sharpe, Ella (1950). Collected Papers on Psychoanalysis. London: Hogarth Press.
*Charlie Rose: A conversation with Amory Lovins
http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/07/15/2/a-conversation-with-amory-lovins
Explore posts in the same categories: Editorials
July 19th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Jane has started an essential and critical dialogue whose time has come. She is making a major contribution because she is now taking the prejudice against MSW social work psychoanalysts beyond our group of psychoanalytic social workers to our entire profession. We must shout her clarion call from the rafters and the rooftops. We must clamor for inclusion, and expose the hypocrisy or self-defeating practices of institutes such as William Alanson White, NYU Postdoctoral, or the APsaA institutes, Columbia and NY Psychoanalytic Institute.
Please let us all follow in Jane’s footsteps. Talk and write wherever you can about the need for all institutes to end discriminatory practices. In addition, when we stop supporting the programs of institutes which depend on us for their success or their income, we are putting words into action. If there ever were a profession which trains us for effective action and for system change, it is SOCIAL WORK.
Psychoanalysis is at an historical juncture. The best of what we have to offer psychoanalysis is the capacity for organizational and system change. Like Jane, my education in psychoanalysis was extended for years (decades) and did not end with my social work degree. Unlike Jane, however, my Ph.D. work combined a psychological attitude study statistical (multiple regression analysis) dissertation after passing my qualifying exams in Policy (instead of Direct Practice). It was the best education in the world. I am so proud of what I learned, and how it was taught. I can take the principles and techniques with me everywhere and anywhere. I learned things in social work that medical school and psychology education do not address. They are things that not only help us change individuals and couples or families. They are tools to change organizations, communities, and systems when it’s time for a change.
I hope all of us who are social workers will recall and remember, and go back to what we learned in our MSW programs in addition to clinical and direct practice theory and practice. As recently as yesterday, I got an upset telephone call from a respected and established surgeon in our community. I first shuddered when he said: “You really pushed the hospital system in only four days and upset a lot of people.” He acknowledged that he had never seen anyone until now do what I had just done (automatically and with relatively little effort) in so little time. Hopefully, what I was able to “pull off” will help someone save her life. Time is of the essence in her newly diagnosed case of a life-threatening illness.
Some people applauded (one hugged me), but many did not like me. They had to re-think and change what they usually do because it was “the right thing” to do, even if it is not in the policy manual. Fortunately, psychoanalytic education and practice (dare I say “training”) has taught me to weather the “negative transferences” even when they are disapproving and damn painful. Social work education gives us the wherewithal and tools to not just think outside the box, but to step outside the box.
In the light of Jane’s post, I had the insight that what this fancy surgeon said is, for me, a compliment and testimony to the solidity and value of everything I learned at the Rutgers School of Social Work. What I could do also comes from my work and valuable experience as a “medical social worker” at the Veterans Administration in Newark and in NYC, and at the Rutgers Medical School (now UMDNJ). Yes, I have been in private practice since only 3 years out of my MSW program. But my entire life has been shaped (proudly and with gratitude) by everything we value in social work.
Everyone reading this listserv has all of these capacities and more. I urge all of us to use everything you know from your MSW educations and apply it to working for progress in our psychoanalytic community laws, like our one-woman army — Laura Groshong — does on a daily basis. And, like Jane Hall is doing as well with her recent efforts for inclusion and ending misguided and divisive practices.
In my first casework class with Professor Neal Brown in 1964, he said: “All of you should have the skills of a psychiatric social worker without the preciousness thereof.” I would add: All of us should have the skills of a policy, group work, and community organization social worker with the added psychoanalytic depth behind them.
Thank you, Jane!
Judy
Judith Logue, Ph.D.
159 Valley Road
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-921-0828; 609-921-8408, fax
judith@judithlogue.com
July 19th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Could this be an instance of the “paradox of revolution”- when the new regime repeats the same prejudices of the old? Although the medicalization of institutional psychoanalysis has been overcome, the “doctoralization” of institutional psychoanalysis continues…
July 21st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Hi: Jane’s reference to the WA White Institute’s conference on prejudice highlights the paradox of an Institute committed to
understanding sociocultural issues which then neglects input from the profession which has been in the forefront of these concerns. This is not merely discrimination; it is self-defeating behavior (assuming the
objective is maximizing understanding of social issues).
As many are aware, WAW is one of the last Institutes to maintain barriers to full participation by social workers. Of course, the major force behind the changing practices in many institutes is economic. Without clinical social workers as trainees, many institutes would have had to shut down their programs. We are now welcomed “customers”. (40-50 years ago, many businesses
learned there was money to be made selling to African-American customers.)
Out of curiousity, I went to the WAW website to
see what their current admission requirements are for analytic training:
Psychiatrists: “Matriculation as a candidate for the Certificate in Psychoanalysis is open to graduates of medical schools accredited by
the American Medical Association who have completed at least one year of psychiatric residency in a hospital approved by the American Medical Association.”
Psychologist: “Matriculation as a candidate for the Certificate in Psychoanalysis is open to applicants with a doctoral level degree from
an American Psychological Association approved training program. In addition, the applicant must have completed a one-year psychological
internship. Additional supervised clinical work will be reviewed by the Admissions Committee.”
Clinical Social Worker: “Matriculation as a candidate for the Certificate in Psychoanalysis will be open to Certified Social Workers
who have a doctoral degree in clinical social work from an accredited program that includes a two-year clinical internship. In addition, the
applicant will require supervised post-master’s clinical practice.”
——
This gave me a good chuckle. A physician can enter this program who had a) a 6 week rotation in psychiatry during med school and b) a year
as a resident in inpatient psychiatry. A psychologist needs a year of clinical internship. But a social worker needs two years in internship as an MSW, at least two years of supervised practice in order to become “certified” (I assume this means licensed), three years of doctoral clinical social work education which includes another two years of clinical internship. (Since there is no
accreditation for clinical SW doctoral education, I’m unclear if this means that not a single social worker qualifies for admission.)
Reading this made me nostalgic for the days of poll taxes and citizenship exams as prerequisites for voting. Now I see why WAW is
duly qualified to present a conference on prejudice….
But a larger question remains for many other institutes which have less discriminatory admission requirements. Although social workers are welcomed as candidates (and analysands!!), what is too often missing is social workers as respected teachers and presenters in Institute conferences. Perhaps social workers can present a case, but note how rarely social workers (in many Institutes) are keynote speakers or have central roles in meetings.
In contrast, I would note the explicit respect for the wisdom of social workers offered in the UK by Bowlby, DW Winnicott and Jock
Sutherland; respect which enhanced the development of both object relations and attachment theories. (See beyondthecouch.org for Bowlby’s comments re this or clarewinnicott.net for more re Winnicott.)
Joel Kanter
(PS: I might also note that WAW’s cousin in DC, the Washington School of Psychiatry–also founded by HS Sullivan–has welcomed social worker participation for decades.)
July 21st, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I just caught up today with Jane Hall’s essay and the comments by Judith, Laura, and Joel. I wanted to add my voice and support the fine training which social workers receive, enabling us to understand systems and care for vulnerable populations (among other things!) Combined with psychoanalytic training, we have powerful tools for healing and change. I have long been struck by the irony of the development of “intersubjectivity” , which of course was long prefigured by the social work mantras of “begin where the client is” and “use your feelings as a barometer of the client’s”.
Without resorting to sexy terminology or preciousness, there is so much wisdom in sw practice, so much appreciation of power differentials and intersubjectivity, long before the mainstream of psychoanalysis caught up with us. Sadly, so many social workers have understandably been turned off by PsA, because of that preciousness and the discriminatory practices which Jane refers to. My own take is that the lowest stratum of healers is being scapegoated by its association with the poor and disenfranchised. I am very grateful to this forum for the discussion! Best, Lee Whitman-Raymond
Lee Miriam Whitman-Raymond, PhD, MFA
Adjunct Faculty, Smith College School for Social Work
100 Lafayette Street #308
Pawtucket, RI 02860
401-729-7542
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
It is with much appreciation and empathy that I read Jane Hall’s post. It is an echo of my thoughts and feelings when I first started medical school. There were 10 women in a class of one hundred and ten. After a year, I became president of the women student’s association. As part of our on-going program, I chaired a panel on “Do Women Belong in Medicine”. We had two affirmative speakers and two against. One of the latter was the then Chair of the OB GYN Dept., who claimed that women should not be in medicine because they are unreliable and check out for a week every month because they are incapacitated by their periods.
If we fast forward to present day – I am not exactly certain of the statistics, but I think that almost half of each new medical school classes are women. (The same of course is true of private schools and colleges.) It is my belief, that this is due to not just the women’s movement, but also to the fact that reimbursement in medicine has dropped drastically, and women (as Jane points out about social workers, most of whom are women) are taught to care about other people(patients) more than about money. Thus they are willing to put in more time for less pay, despite the demands of family and children, if they are dedicated to their profession. If there is to be decent health(emotional care falling into this category)l care for patients, women have had to be accepted. In my opinion, the financial crunch of the times has had a lot to do with it.
Historically, I think that there was no barrier to women in psychoanalysis, as evidenced by many of Freud’s contemporaries and followers. However, in American psychoanalysis, as Jane points out, it clearly was the case with psychologists and social workers and other non-MD’s. Again, as with medicine, it is my belief, that social workers are being more accepted into the field of psychoanalysis and will be more so, but that the reasons will have less to do with the lifting of prejudice and more to do with the fact that if psychoanalysis is to survive at all, it will have to be carried on by individuals who are willing to accept lower fees and be more caring about the patient’s wellfare. Analysts have a reputation of being aloof, haughty and expensive. I have not heard this complaint said about social workers.
My apologies for my cynicism, but I have become a late believer in the dictum that “money makes the world go round”. Of course nothing is black and white, but this is an aspect of life that we often tend to overlook in our quest for equality, ethics and so on.
Sasha Rolde
Alexandra K. Rolde, M.D.
Weston, MA 02493
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Posted at the request of David G. Phillips:
Jane Hall’s important op-ed piece on “barrier busting” re-directs our attention to a long standing and troublesome issue. I would like to add to Jane’s article by commenting on a couple of complications involved in considering the three types of organizations that are identified as “discriminating” against MSW social workers.
It is correct, as Jane says, that the psychoanalytic training program at New York University (and also the one at Adelphi University) consider the admission of only social workers with doctoral degrees. It is important to consider, however, that these programs are university based and affiliated with the respective psychology departments in their universities. The admission requirements of the analytic training programs are, therefore, tied up with university entrance requirements and it may be questionable whether the analytic training programs could change their requirements, even if they wanted too.
The organization which has clearly chosen to discriminate against MSW social workers, and which would be free to change its policy if it chose to do so, is the William Alanson White Institute. This “free standing” institute markets its continuing education programs to social workers and accepts them to all of its training programs except their central program, that of psychoanalysis with adults. It is curious that the leadership of the White Institute feels that MSW social workers are capable of conducting psychoanalytic treatment with children, but not with adults, and hard to understand how they make sense of the contradictions in their own policies. The White Insitute has not changed its policies, in spite of the fact that “psychoanalysis” has been included in the scope of practice for licensed clinical social workers in New York State ever since the law took effect in September of 2004. The White Institute is happy to accept fees from social workers who attend its continuing education programs and willing to let them progress in its other training program, but only to a certain level.
As Jane points out it is problematic that there are still two Institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association which do not yet accept MSW social workers, but the real news is that there are twenty eight of the thirty which do. I am currently editing a special issue of the Clinical Social Work Journal, to be published in March of 2009, which attempts to look at how psychoanalysis in America may be affected as clinical social workers become a major group, not just of students, but of teachers, authors, supervisors, and training analysts. I am especially grateful that Dr. Richard Lightbody of the American Psychoanalytic Association contributed an article “from the inside” on how the American is beginning to be affected by the growing participation of social workers.
In his carefully researched article Dr. Lightbody traces the history of the American which has led to these changes, including both many internal changes as the organization became more flexible in its requirements, and the impact of the well known lawsuit that was settled in the 1980′s. He points out that currently social workers make up 13% of the students in the institutes of the American; that the leadership of the various institutes see no significant difference in the training progress of social workers in comparison to psychiatrists and psychologists, and;that to some degree, social workers are beginning to move into the leadership of the American. It is far too early to predict that the American Psychoanalytic Association is going to become a social work organization, but clearly an important evolutionary change has begun and is continuing.
Some of the comments on Jane’s original posting have called for a social action approach to this problem, and pointed out how such a response is a natural one for social workers. Social action approaches are often useful and necessary, but to be effective such an approach must first choose the appropriate target.
David G. Phillips, DSW, LCSW
New York City
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Passion is a wonderful quality to have when one is doing one’s work and when one wants to communicate the validity of one’s views to others. Passion is very effective when one is trying to rally one’s confederates onto victory. And, to some extent a passionate message can win the hearts and minds of some of those not committed to one side or the other.
Unfortunately, as Drew Westen and others have demonstrated, emotions, not logic, rule the day when the public tries to evaluate the competency of political canidates. Jane Hall has learned the lesson from Drew.
Jane Hall says, “My hope, in this short essay, is first of all to educate those who are prejudiced against masters level social work psychoanalysts and lay analysts, and secondly, along the same lines, to make a plea that we respect and listen to diverse points of view from different disciplines.”
Jane makes a profound assumption that an educational decision with which many of us may not agree is based on “prejudice.” I think that this emotional argument may sway some to her perspective. But others, who value rationality over emotions, may receive her message negatively and be swayed to do the opposite.
In my opinion there are many dispassionate rational arguments that one can make to provide psychoanalytic education to licensed social workers with advanced clinical experience.
Jane’s “plea for real non discriminatory practices,” in my opinion, undermines the rational arguments for change in admisssion procedures. Educational admission decisions should not be argued as one would argue for an ERA amendment or an equal rights legal decision.
Leon Hoffman
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Comment from Jeff Seitelman:
I have taught (not to self-aggrandize) courses in the MSW program at CSU Long Beach when Jim Kelly (current Pres of NASW) was in charge (chair). I have always felt that my colleagues in social work were often on the front lines and vital in handling the huge needs of our public. I would back up anything to continue giving them their rightful and vital place in our organization with full respect and priviledges.
Jeff Seitelman
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Jane, Your essay is good: well stated and you make good points. There is nothing in it with which I disagree, but, for better of for worse, here are my reactions: I was struck that you mention the psychoanalytic education conference. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a great idea, I was tempted to submit a proposal, but then I saw the suggested topics, and my thought was: ‘same old stuff, all political.’ I never gave it another thought because the suggested topics began with things like certification and related issues, somewhere down the list, almost as an afterthought there was some vague reference to curriculum. It looked like a political agenda, one with which i might not even disagree, but the lack of attention to content was disspiriting. Now that might not seem related, but it is because the politicization of psychoanalysis is the major factor in its sectarianism, much more than degree, despite your telling points. In our current situation, analysts discriminate against each other much more due to theoretical orientation than professional degree. It’s routine these days for a social worker and psychiatrist who share a theory to become colleagues and dismiss a psychiatrist and social worker from a differing (read competing) theory, but actually quite rare for psychiatrists of the same theory to devalue a social worker of the same theoretical persuasion. The strongest, most powerful, and most debilitating barriers in the field at this point are sectarian camps doing battle with each other for supremacy.
Frank Summers, Ph.D.,ABPP
333 East Ontario, Suite 4509B
Chicago, IL 60611
http://www.franksummersphd.com
July 24th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Comment from Henry J. Friedman:
Leon Hoffman’s recent note amounts to a lecture delivered to Jane Hall regarding her note strongly objecting to those APsaA Institutes that discriminate against those with MSW degrees when it comes to accepting this degree as a credential that qualifies an individual to be considered for analytic training. My emphasis here is on QUALIFYING AN INDIVIDUAL FOR CONSIDERATION FOR TRAINING. In the old days, whether considered good or bad old days, I well remember when the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute rejected on the initial application as many as 50% of all applicants with MDs. Of course no other degree was acceptable to BPSI and other categories were rejected or really need not apply. Homosexuals who acknowledged their sexuality knew they need not apply and while this wasn’t an overt category anyone who was divorced or a single individual with an active and open sexual life also was unlikely to pass through the portals of BPSI, standards were, after all, supreme and of course not to be questioned.
From my first contact with psychoanalysis in Boston I was struck by the rigidity and self defeating aspect of the selection process. It seemed designed to keep out so many talented individuals and screen in those who seemed to conform to standards of mental health that were frankly hard to justify. Well, we have changed a lot but even in those days the presence of Anna Freud and Erik Erickson seemed to indicate that lay analysts could perform the task of analysis. For the 15 years that I worked with a staff of social work psychotherapists as the director of Boston’s largest academic outpatient clinic I observed and supervised many excellent social work therapists who were imbued with years of actual therapy experience; I knew what is widely known, namely, that the PhD in social work didn’t involve more clinical immersion than the MSW + experience in clinical psychotherapy.
Leon’s assertion that Jane Hall is appealing to emotion rather than reason is not only insulting but it is wrong. His own idea that the exclusion by some institutes such as the NYPI, Columbia and the WAW involves educational standards rather than prejudice obviously is designed to protect the notinnocent at all. These institutes are discriminating against social workers when they exclude them categorically. There is no way around this
since we do train non medical candidates in growing numbers. There is nothing to indicate that a PHD means more clinical experience. Social workers should be accepted by all our Institutes but on the basis of the sense of clinical talent and intuitive responsiveness to patients. To do otherwise means treating social workers as a special class of untouchables. This is discrimination and nothing resembling academic standards. Jane Hall deserves recognition for telling it “like it is”. Instead, Leon has delivered a patronizing lecture that is the very opposite of the response that her note should have elicited.
Henry J. Friedman
July 25th, 2008 at 11:00 am
The issue raised by Jane Hall can be linked to questions of the nature
of education. In almost all instances, from the “leave no child behind” program
to Michael DeBakey who trained thousands of surgeons around the world
while insisting, as his students verify, on perfection and excellence in the surgical techniques of
vascular and cardiac surgery that he developed, there is a necessary developmental
process based upon conscious and unconscious determinants.
Education teaches us to conform to the expectations of our teachers and
necessarily involves heirarchies, elitism, specialization and differentiation.
From early childhood to post-doctoral education to continuing education
teachers tend to create others in the image of themselves. Students identify
with and introject teaching whether in the form of rote manuals to the model
of wise elders.
This process is influenced by the ever-changing expecations of cultures, sub-cultures, social classes,
the evolving disciplines of academia, medicine, and the workplace generally.
The problem in all education is how to maintain a dialectic between the known
and the yet to be known. Education is by nature conservative and wary of new ideas
and the curiousity so necessary to growth and progress that threaten the status quo
and the feeling of the safety of the known.
There is an irony in psychoanalysis having been especially conservative
when its teachings and theories privilege an understanding
of the developmental underpinnings of this learning process that include defensive identification,
tendencies for teachers to require conformity and the inevitable oedipal transference struggles and counter-
transferential exclusion of those who don’t “get it.” Awareness of such unconscious contributions to
the learning process might mitigate but never eliminate human nature’s creation of barriers to new
insights and to the “other.”
Fred Sander
July 25th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Comment from Gerald J. Gargiulo
Just for the record I would like to remind everyone that we not just talking about psychologists and social workers, there are a number of members, like myself, who come from the humanities. Such a lineage has a long tradition in psychoanalysis. I believe, as mentioned in a previous article, which was posted on the blog entitled” “Reflections on a Profession,” that our profession must refind its enthusiasm again, the emotional and intellectual force that made it a movement – not simply another profession. Obviously to do that we constantly need new blood, new ideas. Lets argue over the intellectual, emotional and ethical qualities of candidates – what degrees they have, as Freud tried to remind us, are really secondary.
Jerry
Gerald J. Gargiulo, Ph.D.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I applaud Jane Hall’s plea for inclusion in our profession. The exclusion of masters level social workers at training institutes as well as conference planning committees, in my view, eliminates a pool of valuable talent that our profession can ill afford to lose.
Of equal, and on a certain level, perhaps even more serious concern, is the phenomenon of social workers excluding other social workers, which has come to light in the midst of a significant shift in the New York State Education Department’s (NYSED) policies around the practice of the profession. This affects what qualifies as acceptable supervised clinical experience for LCSW licensure in agencies, institutes, and private practice. The result is that many of our LMSW trainees will not be able to apply their supervisory hours towards the LCSW, as our training institutes are not “acceptable” facilities as far as earning hours towards the LCSW. This will not only affect our ability to recruit LMSWs and the concomitant loss to those Training Institutes that do accept MSWs, but it will also result in thousands of patients being abandoned and forced to terminate treatment with LMSWs.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) – NYC supports NYSED’s stance and has advised against private practice for LMSWs as a path towards the LCSW. It is hard to imagine that many NASW members are not in private practice. Furthermore, most of them would have earned their degrees a long time before this recent shift took place, affording many of them the opportunity to graduate from a graduate social work program and “hang out a shingle.” Why would these same people impede other social workers who might decide to pursue a postgraduate course of training soon after obtaining an MSW?
This facet of exclusion in the form of those who create barriers for their own is a particularly worrisome strain of what Jane Hall describes in her excellent essay.
Ferne Traeger, LCSW
July 27th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Other comments brought to mind the debate that has often gone on in Law School and some Medical School admissions: either to admit as many qualified candidates as possible and let the rigors of the training “weed out” the less dedicated and talented, or to try to find measures to keep out potentially less rigorous candidates. The problem with the latter is that we can’t base our exclusions on a discipline by discipline approach: many doctoral (Psychiatrists, Psychologists and some other Physicians (and a few dentists too)) applicants do prove to not have either the wherewithal nor the intellectual abstraction ability to stick with the training; there are experienced Masters Degree Clinical Therapists (LCSWs, MFTs) who, with additional experience, dedication and interest, have the requisite motivation and talent.
I think it has been and would continue to be a terrible loss to our field to arbitrarily exclude applicants for Psychoanalytic Training on the basis of their “parent” discipline and a potential return to the “bad old days”.
Of course, and rightly so, it would open the organization and all its constituent Institute/Centers up to the risk of another law suit as well, for the arbitrariness of such an admission standard.
Lastly, we are in an era, when any and all applicants showing requisite interest and talent in our field, need to be encouraged, taken in, and treated like the gems that they are. We have fewer and fewer interested applicants. I do not mean to suggest, therefore, a “take in everyone” approach; but rather, we cannot afford to keep out smart and talented practicioners of any origin.
Jeff Seitelman
July 27th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
One additional note to my prior posting. It’s been a long time since American PsA Assn affiliated Institute/Centers were the only “game” in town. We do not hold the key to opening the magic door to the Profession of Psychoanalysis. There are many, often fine and rigorous, Independent Institutes regularly graduating Psychoanalysts who go on to lead productive careers and regularly contribute to research and the literature. What are we saying and doing to our place in the field by excluding same and generating tons of bad will and hurt feelings? Where is our place then?
Jeff Seitelman
July 28th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Comment from Ralph Fiskin:
It has started up again. This time it was restarted by a proponent. This tedious and depressing discussion of you know what, featuring the usual repetition, oversimplification, nastiness, and talking past one another, threatens to continue unabated and unchanged on the Members List and the Open Line into the next world, perhaps defining the primary criterion of Psychoanalytic Hell. I am currently reassessing myself to insure that when I die, I go the other way, if by any chance, there IS somewhere to go.
The discussion that provided the opportunity to augment the reputation of you know what was the discussion, initiated by Jane Hall, about the present ineligibility of MSW’s for psychoanalytic education at the New York Psychoanalytic and Columbia Institutes.
Leon Hoffman scolded Jane for politicizing the issue, but Leon did not come out publicly and disclose his view on whether or not his institute should educate MSW’s. Nor, I think, did anyone else, except for Jonathan House, Henry Friedman, and perhaps Arnold Richards (I forget, but his position is well-known). If I have overlooked someone, I apologize. Now, some are now busy distracting us from this issue by again arguing that we protect psychoanalysis from the basically incompetent with you know what.
Today, the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia held a brunch for interested prospective applicants to our psychoanalytic, psychotherapy, and fellowship programs. In attendance were three people who would not be able to study at NYPI and Columbia, but they CAN study with us. One, a business executive in a second career, just completed his MSW at a prestigious local college. Another is a classics professor and lawyer, now interested in our field. The third is an author and teacher of writers. Already a past Fellow at our Center, he is pursuing a clinical education and license as an MSW, and will be back for further learning with us.
Each of them has been inspired by members of our faculty, and wants to immerse him/herself further in our world. In Philadelphia, they CAN go further and ultimately become one of our worthy colleagues. In NYC, they could not train at NYPI or Columbia, and would have to go to a competitor.
NYPI! Columbia! It’s your loss!
Ralph Fishkin
August 7th, 2011 at 5:44 am
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