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The Old Man's Case Book
For comment on the therapeutic practices of Commander "Snake" Thompson, Hubbard's mentor.

Source: The Psychoanalytic Roots of Scientology by Silas L. Warner, M.D.
Lightly edited by Ann-Louise S. Silver, M.D.

Maurice Green, editor of Clara Thompson's papers (1964) included a biographic chapter (Inter-personal Psychoanalysis: The Selected Papers of Clara M. Thompson, New York: Basic Books, 1964). He writes that on the encouragement of Lucielle Dooley, Clara joined her as summer staff at St. Elizabeth's Hospital while Clara was still in medical school. There, she met its superintendent, William Alanson White, Edward Kempf, author of the first U.S. book on psychoanalytic applications in treating psychosis, as well as Joseph Thompson. He was "sincerely dedicated to the utilization of psychoanalytic concepts and techniques in everyday medical practice to help patients accommodate to reality more effectively. A kind man, sympathetic and compassionate, he interested himself in Clara and encouraged her to seek psychoanalytic help." (p. 352) She went on to become a psychiatric resident at Phipps Clinic in Baltimore, working under Dr. Adolf Meyer, the well-known psychobiologist. In 1923, during her second year of psychiatric training, she met Harry Stack Sullivan, beginning a long and fruitful friendship. During her last year of training, Adolf Meyer honored her by placing her in charge of his private patients. "This was the greatest recognition a psychiatric resident could be given at Phipps. At the same time she began psychoanalytic treatment with Dr. Joseph C. Thompson. Her classmates, who had always known her as rather bitterly unhappy and alone, were impressed with the great rapport that she had with her analyst. The two of them were frequently seen dining together or, walking arm in arm, talking animatedly. For Clara, this must have been a precious relief from the burdens of her loneliness and unhappiness." (p. 353)

During the following year, 1925, Adolph Meyer objected to Clara's being in psychoanalysis with Joseph Thompson. Meyer insisted that she discontinue her psychoanalysis; she refused; he dismissed her. In 1931 she went to Budapest and finished her psychoanalysis with Sandor Ferenczi.

The following case history from Interpersonal psychoanalysis : the selected papers of Clara M. Thompson is obviously Clara Thompson herself, commenting on her analysis with Joseph Thompson.
Chapter 14
Notes on the Psychoanalytic Significance of the Choice of Analyst
[...]
The second case is that of a woman with a male analyst. The first meeting was at a social gathering. In the course of the evening they had a conversation together which led to his suggesting that she come to see him professionally and  discuss her being analyzed. Her reaction was fear but she realized that she needed  analysis, that he would probably accept her for a fee which she could pay, and finally  she felt irresistibly attracted to the situation. Analysis was begun, fear continued,  sleeplessness developed, difficulty in working appeared, and the patient finally lost  her job. The analyst repeatedly urged the patient to seek the sources of her fear of  him in her fear of her father-to no avail. The difficulty lay in the analyst. There  was in him some tendency to get women away from other men and make them entirely  dependent on him. The patient in question had a neurotic attachment to her employer  which was reciprocated by the employer, who also had a neurotic need for power. When  this situation began to be analyzed, the analyst's jealousy reinforced the patient's  own tendency to make indirect aggressions of a serious nature against her employer  with disastrous consequences. Although the patient continued in analysis for some  months after the loss of her position, she made no further progress, having lost  confidence in the analyst on a reality basis. Later her analysis was successfully  completed by another. p. 1351
Interpersonal psychoanalysis : the selected papers of Clara M. Thompson
Thompson, Clara, Green, Maurice R. (Ed.)
1Sandor Ferenczi.
See The Clinical Diary of Sandor Ferenczi Excerpt 7 January 1932 
 
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