REMINISCENCE
The Lawsuit: Then, Now, and in the Future
Bryant WELCH
Megan Shaughnessy is a visual artist and children’s book illustrator living in Connecticut. Meganshaughnessy.com
To: Arnold Zelig Schneider with gratitude, admiration, and love on the occasion of his 77th birthday On March 1, 1985, psychologists Arnie Schneider, Helen Desmond, Tony Bernay, and I filed a class action antitrust lawsuit against the American psychoanalytic Association, (“The American”) and affiliated groups. The lawsuit contended that the defendants’ refusal to let psychologists train in their institutes or to let their teachers teach in non-American institutes constituted a restraint of trade in violation of the United States federal antitrust laws. The lawsuit also named the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) for its refusal to allow psychologist institutes IPA membership in North America. Few now doubt the significant impact that the lawsuit has had on the psychoanalytic enterprise in America. In fact, the impact has been so profound that understandably many of the younger psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic aspirants are surprised to learn about the nature of the psychoanalytic world pre-1985 in which a career in psychoanalysis was impossible for most non-medical mental
health professionals. Thus, I particularly appreciate being asked to write this reflective memoir on the lawsuit. I would be terribly remiss not to begin with a personal statement. I have said many times that for me, personally, the lawsuit has been the gift that keeps on giving. Friendships have been the most important part of my life, and lifelong friendships with Arnie Schneider and Helen Desmond are at the very core of the bounty that the lawsuit has given me personally. I would also be remiss not to mention Nathan Stockhamer, then the clinical director at the William Alanson White Institute, who more than anyone helped legitimatize my seemingly very radical idea of using litigation to overcome the restrictive policies of the medical-psychoanalytic establishment. Nat passed away in 2019 at the age of 91. I consider the thirty-five-year- long deeply personal relationship I had with this loving and urbane man to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. I also want to acknowledge Clifford Stromberg who was the attorney in the lawsuit and who graciously put up with my meddling in it. Unfortunately, Toni Bernay passed away several years ago. I remember Tony both for her elegance and her 4
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political sophistication. Equally moving for me, in this reminiscence are the memories of the hundreds of psychologists I spoke to in speeches or personal communications during that time. But why did we need a lawsuit? The short answer was that both clinical psychology and social work were rapidly growing and assuming primary responsibility for psychotherapy in America. Thus, the restrictive policies that kept us from being able to get advanced training in psychoanalysis were a tragic bottleneck wasting the clear talent that these young mental health professionals could bring to bear on human suffering and on the evolution of psychoanalysis itself. For years and years there was talk that the American was going to change its restrictive policies, but hopes were repeatedly dashed. In 1982 when such optimism had been particularly high, the medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, Melvin Sabshin, addressed the governance of the American and cautioned the members to “stay close to their medical roots.” The reports from that meeting indicated that Sabshin’s comments effectively killed any chance of reform.
