ABSTRACT
The author informs that an important influence on his career was the growing involvement in the teachings of Harry Stack Sullivan, with whom Dr Fromm-Reichmann was affiliated at the Washington School of Psychiatry. Thus he had acquired a reasonable 'book knowledge' of psychotherapy and experienced a lengthy personal analysis. The practice of psychotherapy was obviously the major bone of contention between psychiatrists and psychologists. Psychoanalysis was the most prestigious form of therapy, and advanced residents were eager to be accepted as candidates for analytic training. This training was carried out under the aegis of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute which conducted a joint programme at the University of North Carolina and Duke University. Several factors contributed to the transient desire to become a full-time therapist. Temperamentally, he considers himself much better suited to a research and writing career than to that of a full-time practising therapist.
