ABSTRACT
During the first quarter of the twentieth century psychoanalysis was taken up enthusiastically in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and many other parts of Europe. Sigmund Freud’s (1926e/2002) essay, ‘The Question of Lay Analysis’ is widely cited as an important ‘state of the art’ account of his theory and practice of psychoanalysis in the 1920s, and is still frequently recommended as an introduction to his thinking. However, as a postscript published in 1927 explained, Freud’s reason for writing the essay was not to provide an accessible introduction to his ideas, but to contribute to the defence of his ‘non-medical colleague Dr Th.[eodor] Reik’ against ‘a charge of fraudulent medical practice’ (Freud 1927a/2002: 163). In mounting this defence, Freud (1926e/2002: 155) argued that psychoanalysis should not be ‘swallowed up by medicine and then be stored away in the psychiatry textbooks’ and that people other than medical doctors should be able to train and practice as psychoanalysts. Although ‘four-fifths of the people that I acknowledge as my students are doctors’ (Freud 1926e/2002: 138), Freud was determined to defend the rights of others to train and practise as well, noting that ‘lay people who are practising analysis today are not just anybody, but educated people, PhDs, teachers and individual women with a great deal of experience of life and outstanding personalities’ (Freud 1926e/2002: 152). Given restrictions on women’s entry to the medical profession in the early twentieth century, Freud’s advocacy of lay analysis was especially important in making psychoanalysis accessible to female practitioners.
