Rev Int Hist Psychanal. 1988 ; 1(): 361-73.

[The effect of immigration on lay analysis in the United States]

Reed GS.

This paper investigates the effect of the immigration of European trained medical and non-medical psychoanalysts upon the development of lay-analysis in New York City. Using as a principle resource informal interviews with non-medical analysts who took part in the struggle to acquire classical training in the 1930's, 40's and early 50's in New York City, it chronicles the development of a secret, unofficial network of training and the eventual establishment of a state certified training Institute in the face of fierce opposition from organized psychiatry. It also questions the unconscious effect upon psychoanalysts practicing in such a professional atmosphere and speculates whether the concept of the conflict-free sphere of the ego did not fortuitously lend itself to denial of that question.