Ann Arbor on the Couch

continued

In the 1980s, four PhD psychologists sued the APsaA, contending that the group's exclusion of non-physicians violated antitrust laws. In an out-of-court settlement, APsaA agreed to open analytic training to "psychologists and other qualified non-medical clinicians." But many therapists in Saxe's group, the MSPP, didn't wait for their old rivals' blessing. Instead, they created MPC and began offering their own training in psychoanalysis.

Ironically, the settlement turned out to be a lifesaver for MPI as well. By then, many fewer psychiatrists were seeking training, as physicians shifted their orientation from analysis toward medication. "Indeed if we had won the lawsuit to restrict entry of non-MDs into our organization in 1988, we would have been impoverished and...far more vulnerable," writes former APsaA president Newell Fischer. Today, only one-third of MPI's analysts in training are physicians, and three-quarters are women.

--J.S.   

[Originally published in December, 2009.]