Third-party confidences: the uses of information in a psychoanalytic institute

The senior members of psychoanalytic institutes are required to determine which students should graduate as psychoanalysts, and which graduates should be appointed as faculty members. By virtue of having analyzed many relatives, friends and colleagues of the students and graduates being evaluated, the senior members of "Eastern Institute" sometimes used the confidential information gathered from the analyses of these third parties in reaching their decisions. This practice, which reflected the structural dilemma inherent in Institute life, created a distinctive system for the communication of privileged information and at times posed problems for the Institute's members. It also rendered the status of confidential information problematic. This paper discusses some of the characteristics of the Institute's system of communication and its significance in the psychoanalytic world.