The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 1988/1. [antikvár]

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Wherever psychoanalysts gather these days, discussions suggest that there is a widespread conviction among us that both our science and our profession are at a point of very unusual, exciting, and perhaps even perilous change. Although analysis has a long history of intellectual ferment and organizational controversy, a sense exists that the present moment is one of heightened drama and importance in both spheres. A number of competing theories currently occupy our intellectual attention, as the programs of our scientific meetings and the pages of our journals attest. Obvious changes in emphasis within undergraduate and graduate psychiatric educational programs, coupled with the movement in this country toward modification of the existing relationship between medical and non-medical analysts, suggest that we may have to altér our accustomed psychoanalytic educational procedures. Already, new evaluation of applicants' preparatory experiences, refined criteria for candidate selection, and modernization of curricula are under consideration at somé institutes. The educated public has been bombarded with news of any number of ill-informed, and sometimes ill-intentioned, criticisms of psychoanalysis, and alsó exposed to overpublicized squabbles within our ranks. The increasing spread of alternative therapies of all kinds has had an impact on the population of potential analysands, as well as on the thinking of those who customarily refer patients for analysis, and the nature of psychoanalytic practice, at least in somé localities, apparently reflects these changes. It is fascinating to try to anticipate the directions in which psychoanalysis may be headed. Whether one is concerned about its further intellectual development and influence, or its refinement as a therapeutic procedure, or its likely place in the spectrum of healing professions, or the practical consequences of a career choice that embraces psychoanalysis, or all of these aspects of the future, there is great interest in discussing our