I found a great psychoanalytic paper about this from the USA in the 50s,
which I quoted in a paper I wrote on professionalisation for the BJGC:
[In the 1920s and 30s] many gifted individuals with definite neuroses or
character disorders were trained.
They were primarily introspective individuals, inclined to be studious and
thoughtful,
and tended to be highly individualistic. ... read prodigiously and knew the
psycho-analytic literature thoroughly.
In contrast, perhaps the majority of students of the past decade or so have
been
‘normal’ characters, or perhaps one should say had ‘normal character
disorders’. They
are not introspective, are inclined to read only the literature that is
assigned in
institute courses, and wish to get through with the training requirements as
rapidly as
possible. ... Their motivation for being analysed is more to get through this
requirement of training rather than to ... explore introspectively and with
curiosity
their own inner selves. ... The partial capitulation of some institutes
arising from
numbers of students, from their ambitious haste, and from their tendency to be
satisfied with a more superficial grasp of theory, has created some of the
training
problems we now face.
(KNIGHT, R.(1953). The present status of organized psychoanalysis in the
United States. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 2.)
Strikes a chord, huh?
Regards
Nick
Nick Totton
Erthworks
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