In reference to the interest of the physicians, I do not believe that
medicine has anything to gain by annexing psychoanalysis. Today, medical
training requires five years, with almost a whole sixth year taken up
with examinations. Ever so often, new demands in regard to training are
made with which the young student must comply, if his medical education
is to be considered adequate. Generally speaking, while it is difficult
today to enter the medical profession, the practice of medicine is
neither very satisfactory nor very advantageous. And as soon as the
undoubtedly justified necessity is realized that the physician be also
informed of the psychological aspects of diseases, thus including in
medical training a partial preparation for psychoanalysis, there would
follow an extension of the medical curriculum and a corresponding
extension of the period of training. I do not know how physicians would
like such a development, arising from the monopoly they claim on
psychoanalysis. But these demands would then have to be fulfilled and at
a time when, in general, the material aspects of those strata of society
which contribute the greatest contingent to the medical profession, are
such that young physicians must establish a practice, as soon as
possible.
However, the medical profession may not intend to include preparation
for psychoanalysis into the medical curriculum proper. The general
opinion may be that it is much more practical for the young physician to
acquire psychoanalytical knowledge only after having completed his
medical education. It may be said that such a procedure would not
involve any actual loss of time, inasmuch as a young man under thirty
never gains that confidence of patients which is an indispensable
condition for benefiting a patient psychoanalytically. Of course, it
could be said that a young physician, too, who has just won his diploma,
cannot command too much respect, as regards his opinion of the physical
ailments of his patients, and that the young analyst could very well
utilize his time, by working in a psychological clinic, under the
supervision of an experienced practitioner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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