A view of the prospective child psychiatrist

A questionnaire distributed to the 1,033 medical students who matched into postgraduate year 1 psychiatric positions in 1982 and 1983 obtained data on personal characteristics, career plans before entering medical school, future career plans, attitudes toward personal psychotherapy, and plans for psychotherapy or psychoanalysis during residency. The results for the 579 residents (56%) who responded are reported. The authors explore differences and similarities between respondents who planned to go into general or child psychiatry as they began general psychiatric residency training. They found two clusters of prospective child psychiatrists: one psychoanalytically oriented and the other eclectically oriented. The authors discuss the implications of this clustering.