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The status and practice of psychoanalysis is being forcefully challenged by our time and felt keenly by the bastions of tradition: the psychoanalytic training institutes. Berman, a liberal at heart and a training analyst at the Israeli Psychoanalytic Institute, believes that the vitality of an organization or institution depends on its flexibility to permit change and thus create growth. Growth does not occur in isolation but via dialogues, controversies, exchange of opinions, and a clear non-obfuscated presentation of issues to be discussed. This book aims at such presentation. The focus is on problems in psychoanalytic training.
The title is taken from a quote by Freud: “…as if analysis is the third of those ‘impossible’ professions in which one can be sure beforehand of achieving unsatisfying results. The other two, which have been known much longer, are education and government” (p. 1). Berman asks us to take his title with a grain of salt, but it does reflect his experience that psychoanalytic training is a conflict-ridden, complex, difficult area, characterized by many emotional currents that are not always acknowledged. He sharply illuminates these currents in order to make a constructive debate possible. A book to be embraced by all, not only by those involved with training. All of us have had to struggle and find our individual answers to the obstacles of psychoanalytic dogmas and rules of technique.
The subtitle reflects a relational psychoanalytic view that stresses the dynamics and the impact of relationships, be it dyads, groups, or culture, and explores childhood issues that subtly mold adult life. Berman favors a climate of heterodoxy. His “Introduction: On Training and History” is shaped by his relational perspective. He not only acquaints us with the history of the origins of the orthodox psychoanalytic training model, but also emphasizes the importance of biographical knowledge. New psychoanalytic thoughts and ideas tend to develop or become apparent