Message From the Director

This year's Center bulletin, printed to celebrate the arrival of the Center’s new trainees and the accomplishments of its faculty, is an anniversary issue. The very first edition, whose cover you can see reproduced on the back of ours, was published for the Center’s inaugural academic year, 1945-46. 

This is our octogintennial.

In marriages, the 80th anniversary is celebrated by gifts made of oak, presumably because of the strength and longevity of oak trees.  At 80, our Center is unquestionably sturdy and enduring, but I think the symbol of the oak has another meaning for us this year.

The Center’s first bulletin announced just one training program. Physicians who had completed their internship in psychiatry were admitted to a three-year course of study in psychoanalytic theory, technique, and research. Only those returning from military service were offered an option–a less intensive non-degree program expected to end “with the closing of the demobilization period.”

Today, we have the honor of welcoming trainees from around the world into a wealth of diverse programs. With courses of study for beginning psychiatry residents and psychology graduate students to those for senior faculty members seeking to develop their work as educators, our original program in psychoanalysis has ramified widely into the expansive Center we know today.  Happily, this year inaugurates a new dimension in that growth. For the first time in the Center’s life, those joining four of our psychotherapy programs will be recognized by the university as Columbia graduate students deserving of the same benefits afforded to our psychoanalytic candidates.

On our Oak Anniversary, it’s humbling to compare our longevity to that of a tree capable of weathering hundreds of years. I hope we’ll come to deserve that comparison someday. But oaks are also admired for the distinct way they branch into broad, spreading crowns, and that’s a metaphor I’m proud to believe we have already earned. 

To those joining us for the first time who have found a Center program that suits their interests, welcome! I hope you will make your professional home here under the Center’s canopy in the years to come. And to those new and returning faculty whose time and talent enable the Center to extend its offerings to an ever-expanding student body, thank you for the gifts you will give our trainees this year and in the future.

I wish you all a rich and rewarding year of teaching and learning. Happy 80th!

Warmly,

Justin Richardson, MD
Director, Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research