Psychoanalytic training came to the United States first on the Atlantic seaboard during the 1930s with the establishment of institutes connected with societies in New York, Boston, and the Baltimore-Washington area and then, in one extension westward, in Chicago. A decade later, in the early 1940s, a society and institute were established for the first time west of the Mississippi River, in Topeka, Kansas, by Karl and Will Menninger, who had been trained psychoanalytically by commuting to Chicago during the 1930s. The Topeka institute was authorized to sponsor all training in the western part of the United States, including California.

The San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute was established in 1942 as part of the combined California Psychoanalytic Society (a joint society of Los Angeles and San Francisco), both branches being under the direction and supervision of the Topeka society and institute. The initial ten charter...