Training Analysis

The Early Analysts discussed their cases with their colleagues, a procedure common in all branches of medicine. Their objective was to improve psychoanalytic theory and technique by utilizing the creativity and experience of each one engaged in the work. Through these discussions, the analysts found they were learning a great deal about their own personalities, and about the influence of their attitudes, thoughts, and feelings toward the patient on the course of analysis. These were the first training analyses. Freud1 states, “I soon saw the necessity of an analysis of myself and this I carried out with the help of my own dreams…. This kind of analysis may suffice for anyone who is a prolific dreamer and not too abnormal.”

Most psychiatrists undertaking analytic practice, however, felt they needed help from more experienced colleagues. Shortly, a personal analysis was instituted as part of a training program for analysts. They discussed patients they worked with as well as themselves. This procedure was called Didactic Analysis. It was undertaken to learn analytic technique and was considered different from a therapeutic analysis.

Over the course of years, it has become apparent that the analyst's problems are not dissimilar to those of his patients and that his blind spots can be reduced by analysis. Still, when the analysand is a candidate in training, the term “didactic analysis” continues to be a face-saving term for his analysis, and the analytic procedure continues to be regarded as different from other analyses. In 1948, Alexander2 wrote, “Didactic Analysis (training analysis) which every trained analyst undergoes, increases the knowledge of his own personality, and enables him to allow for the disturbing influence of his own character (that is, the personal equation) in evaluating his patient… The observer has to be analyzed himself to overcome his repressions and learn to understand the unconscious elements in his personality and thus become sensitive to them