Psychoanalysis did not, as many people seem to think, spring full-blown and de novo out of Freud's head, like Athena out of Zeus's. Freud's earliest formulations were significantly rooted in the concepts and techniques of the psychiatric practice of his time, particularly those of hypnosis and suggestion. That psychoanalysis subsequently became alienated from the main body of psychiatry was in a sense a historical accident, deriving from the intense opposition and hostility which its theories initially aroused in official medical circles. The relative isolation of Freud and his small group of followers that ensued led to the formation of psychoanalytic societies, journals, and training institutes, which for many years remained outside of the main stream of organized psychiatry.*
Over the past 50 years, however, the influence of psychoanalysis upon psychiatric thought, particularly in America, has steadily signaled the growing influence of psychoanalysis