A lay analysis is a
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
performed by someone who is not a
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
; that person was designated a lay analyst.
In ''
The Question of Lay Analysis
''The Question of Lay Analysis'' (german: Die Frage der Laienanalyse) is a 1926 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, advocating the right of non-doctors, or 'lay' people, to be psychoanalysts. It was written in response to Theodore ...
'' (1927),
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
defended the right of those trained in psychoanalysis to practice therapy irrespective of any medical degree. He would strive tirelessly to maintain the independence of the psychoanalytic movement from what he saw as a medical monopoly for the rest of his life.
Freud and non-medical analysts
From the outset, Freud welcomed lay (non-medical) people into as practitioners of psychoanalysis:
Otto Rank
Otto Rank (; ; né Rosenfeld; 22 April 1884 – 31 October 1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, ...
and
Theodor Reik
Theodor Reik (; 12 May 1888, in Vienna, Austria – 31 December 1969, in New York) was a psychoanalyst who trained as one of Freud's first students in Vienna, Austria, and was a pioneer of lay analysis in the United States.
Education and career
...
were two such notable analysts, as well as Freud's daughter
Anna. In Freud's view, psychoanalysis was a full-fledged professional field and could have its own standards independent of medicine. Indeed, in 1913 he wrote "The practice of psychoanalysis has far less need for medical training than for educational preparation in psychology and free human insight. The majority of physicians are not equipped for the work of psychoanalysis".
Thus Freud saw psychoanalysis as "a profession of lay curers of souls who need not be doctors and should not be priests"; and this new usage of "lay" (to include non-physicians) is the origin of the term, "lay analysis." Such prominent psychoanalytic figures as
Anna Freud
Anna Freud (3 December 1895 – 9 October 1982) was a British psychoanalyst of Austrian-Jewish descent. She was born in Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She followed the path of her father and contribu ...
,
Erik H. Erikson
Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity c ...
,
Ernst Kris
Ernst Kris (April 26, 1900 – February 27, 1957) was an Austrian psychoanalyst and art historian.
Life
Kris was born in 1900 to Leopold Kris, a lawyer, and Rosa Schick in Vienna, Austria-Hungary.
Kris not only practiced as a psychoanalyst, he ...
, and
Harry Guntrip
Henry James Samuel Guntrip (29 May 1901 – 1975) was a British psychologist known for his major contributions to object relations theory or school of Freudian thought. He was a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a psychotherapist an ...
were non-physicians.
When in the 1920s Reik became embroiled in legal challenges over his right to practice psychoanalysis, Freud rose ardently to his defence, writing ''Lay Analysis'' in support of his position; and adding privately that "the struggle for lay analysis must be fought through some time or another. Better now than later. As long as I live, I shall balk at having psychoanalysis swallowed by medicine".
Opposition to Freud
However, embroiled in a struggle for psychoanalytic respectability, the plurality of Freud's followers were not at one with him on this issue, and opposition was especially contentious in the United States. The issue remained heated until World War II - a split with the American Association only being prevented in the 1920s when a compromise allowed lay analysts to work with children alone in New York.
However in 1938, the
American Psychoanalytic Association
The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) is an association of psychoanalysts in the United States. APsaA serves as a scientific and professional organization with a focus on education, research, and membership development.
APsaA comprises 3 ...
(APsaA) formally began limiting membership of the association to physicians who had first trained as
psychiatrists
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
and subsequently undergone a
training analysis
A training analysis is a psychoanalysis undergone by a candidate (perhaps a physician with specialty in psychiatry or a psychologist) as a part of her/his training to be a psychoanalyst; the (senior) psychoanalyst who performs such an analysis is ...
at a (then European) psychoanalytic institute. The move has been described as initiating an official cleavage with the rest of the IPA which would not be settled until 1987.
During that period, many in the States believed, in
Janet Malcolm
Janet Clara Malcolm (born Jana Klara Wienerová; July 8, 1934 – June 16, 2021) was an American writer, journalist on staff at ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and collagist. She was the author of '' Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession'' (198 ...
's words, that "American psychoanalysis is a great cut above psychoanalysis elsewhere in the world...the laxness and sloppiness of English, European, and South American analysis. There are other people, naturally, who...
ebatewhether too much wasn't lost by this strategy - whether too many good people who are unwilling to go through medical training aren't being lost to analysis". The policy was somewhat softened by the readiness of the APsaA to grant waivers over the decades to a number of individuals: these included, for example, Erik Erikson and
David Rapaport
David A. Rapaport (September 30, 1911, Budapest, Austria-Hungary – December 14, 1960, Stockbridge, Mass.) was a Hungarian clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic ego psychologist.
Biography
Rapaport was born in Budapest, Hungary on Septemb ...
. There was also the
National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis
The National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) is an institution established in New York City by Theodore Reik in 1948, in response to the controversy over lay analysis and the question of the training of psychoanalysts in th ...
which Reik founded in 1946 specifically to train non-physicians.
However only when lawsuits were brought in the 1980s alleging "restraint of trade"' was the official American position finally altered, and the question of lay analysis resolved - as Freud himself always advocated.
In popular culture
In the 1947 film
Mine Own Executioner
''Mine Own Executioner'' is a 1947 British psychological thriller drama film starring Burgess Meredith and directed by Anthony Kimmins, and based on the novel of the same name by Nigel Balchin. It was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. ...
, actor
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed theater, film, and television.
Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "on ...
portrays a lay practitioner who treats a traumatized veteran.
List of lay analysts
References
Further reading
*
Freud, Sigmund (1927). Nachwort zur Frage der Laienanalyse (1926e). ''Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse'', 13: 326-332; ''GW'', 14: 287-296; Postscript: The question of lay analysis. ''SE'', 20: 251-258.
*
*
*
*Lieberman, E. J., Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank. 1985; French ed. 1993; German ed. 1997.
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Psychoanalysis by type