The struggle over the issue of "lay" or nonmedical analysis has divided the psychoanalytic world for practically the entire first century of psychoanalytic history - from 1910 when the issue first arose, until 1988 with the final settlement of a laysuit brought against the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) and International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) for their exclusionary practices regarding the training of nonphysicians for psychoanalytic work. This text chronicles this history in detail. It begins with the events of 1910 in Europe and America that initiated their divergent attitudes and policies regarding lay analysis, proceeds to the unfolding struggles over this issue on both sides of the Atlantic and reviews the halting efforts of the APsaA, beginning in the 1950s, to reassess its opposition to lay analysis and made some provision for the training of nonmedical practitioners. Wallerstein's treatment of the response of American nonphysician therapists to the APsaA's policy - the manner in which they managed to obtain clinical psychoanalytic training despite the APsaA's prohibition - forms a story within his grand narrative.