Medicine: Couch Costs

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Every would-be psychoanalyst, whether physician or not, must submit himself to a "didactic" or training analysis before he can qualify. And even with professional discount, the analysis comes high: average, $20 five times a week for three years. Two psychiatrists, Drs. Arnold Namrow of Washington and Jay Cohen Maxwell of Houston, argued that they ought to be able to deduct these couch costs from their taxable income as either a business expense or a medical service. Last week the U.S. Tax Court ruled against them. The training analysis, it held, is part of the curriculum for which budding analysts sign up to gain "advancement in position," is therefore an educational cost —and nondeductible.