Psychoanalysis as a profession: Past failures and future possibilities

Recent sociology of the professions calls attention to the project of professionalization, the process by means of which a practice or vocation acquires and sustains the status of a profession. From this perspective the author examines the shortcomings of psychoanalysis: its fragmentation, the failure to present a united or at least coherent face to the public; its inability to establish its professional authority in a consistent and convincing manner; and its persistent ambiguity about the nature of the service it offers to the public, the work it undertakes to provide.