Transference to Theory: The Relationship of Psychoanalytic Education to the Analyst's Relationship to Psychoanalysis

For this volume dedicated to the memory of Joan Fleming, I would like to discuss an aspect of the training of a psychoanalyst not typically included in the curriculum or mentioned in discussions of the educational process. Yet the fate of this factor in the development of the analyst is central not only to his individual future as an analyst but equally to the health of the psychoanalytic profession. I am referring to a relationship which develops during training and comes to fruition following the training years, the relationship of the analyst to psychoanalytic theory. Associated with this is the relationship of the analyst to the psychoanalytic group which forms around theory. The two are reciprocal. Being part of a group can determine one's theory, and a theory can cause one to become part of a group.

That transference is not limited to the analytic situation but occurs in a wider sphere in life is generally known in the standard sense of the definition of transference. Reider (1953) has pointed out the displacement of transference in hospitalized patients to the institution of which their treatment is a part. A similar mechanism has been noted in candidate analyses, a splitting of the transference between the training analyst and the Institute as a whole, or supervisors, teachers, peers, etc., involved in aspects of the training experience. To these vicissitudes I would like to add a phenomenon equally commonly observed, but to my knowledge not previously noted: a displacement of transference to psychoanalytic theory. While this occurs