ABSTRACT
In the heyday of psychoanalysis, its golden age, the psychoanalytic establishment defined psychoanalysis in contrast to psychotherapy. We have provided a brief summary of the events that set the stage for this development. In this chapter, we will review the positions taken by the key players in the formative debates that shaped the definition of the field. As we do so, we recognize that in a profession that is now predominantly female, in a country that has become increasingly diverse—though unfortunately, psychoanalysis still does not reflect that diversity—it can feel off-putting to immerse one’s self in what seem to be the professional squabbles of a group of dead white men. Although several famous women stand out as exceptions, such as Anna Freud, Edith Jacobson, Phyllis Greenacre, Clara Thompson, and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, among others, the power brokers of 1950s American psychoanalysis were predominantly male. Their views will be the primary focus of this chapter, as we examine the 1950s debates that defined psychoanalysis by differentiating it from psychotherapy. Exacerbating the discomfort of reviewing these arguments is that the participants in these debates were full of their own success and power, speaking and writing at a time when psychoanalysis was at its peak in the United States. Masters of the Universe of their day, they had risen to the most prestigious of positions in an exclusive medical specialty just at the height of the country’s economic prosperity, following its victory in World War II. These analysts were the recipients of a culture-wide idealized transference; they were the country’s wise men. Intellectual and culturally sophisticated, most of them had studied in Europe, carrying the additional mystique of having been analyzed by Freud, members of his circle, or other European pioneer analysts.
