This Is My Calling

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In reading your work, I noticed that you said your “passionate and faithful adherence” to psychoanalysis began in your sophomore year of college. ¹ Could you tell me how that came about?

Roy Schafer

Yes. I took a Psych 1 course at City College in New York City. It was a filler in my schedule. I was planning to be a physics major, with no particular enthusiasm, only because I had gotten good marks in high school. That was during the Depression. I considered it a high ideal to be able to become a high school teacher with a steady income because poverty was the first consideration. But the relatively new faculty at City College, assembled by Gardner Murphy, were young, bright, progressive psychologists. We were assigned, in addition to all the standard works, Freud’s General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. And that was it for me. I had the experience that “this is my calling, and I have to find some way to be in psychology.” I wasn’t specifically thinking of becoming an analyst, because once I started taking psych courses I was taking social psychology, physiological psychology, and so forth from enormously bright, cutting-edge sorts of guys. The whole field fascinated me, except animal psychology, which I didn’t much care for—and I still don’t. But before long I felt that I wanted to become an analyst. Through Murphy, who knew a number of analysts, I had a chance to talk to one or two, who discouraged me, because I was not planning to go to medical school. At that time, it was a real barrier.

PLR

Of course.

RS

So I thought, “Well, I hate the idea of going to medical school, and I’ll do something in psychology.” Clinical psychology was not yet a field, but there were a few people working in child guidance clinics or state hospitals doing testing. And that was already interesting enough. So I said, “I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway.” This was against family opposition because they found out that it was not a field. There were virtually no jobs. It was a ridiculous way to “throw myself away.” I was an A student, and it was a “waste” of myself.

PLR

Did their attitude apply to psychology generally or to psychoanalysis in particular?

RS

It applied to psychology generally, but my specific interest at that point was in becoming an analyst. It seemed hopeless. The war was on then. It was in the early 40s; I hadn’t been drafted yet. And, before I graduated, along came David Rapaport from the Menninger Clinic. He needed a research assistant in his work on testing. He had a grant, and he had a sponsorship that would enable him to get me a draft deferment until the project was finished. Which they did. I went to Menningers’—again against family opposition—and I worked with Rapaport for a little over two years. We finished the research, and I was drafted shortly before V.E. Day. I was still going through various forms of basic training when V. J. Day came, so I never served in combat.