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My experience as a teaching psychoanalyst at the Paris Psychoanalytic Society and my membership on the Executive Committee of the International Psychoanalytic Association, where I have had the opportunity of hearing about psychoanalytic education in a number of countries, have convinced me that psychoanalytic training is more than the organization of a curriculum and the evaluation of the progress of candidates: it is strongly influenced by the specific culture and pedagogical practice at work in the country where the Institute is established.
This paper is therefore directed along two main lines: (1) I shall first briefly discuss the practice and theory of supervision in the Society to which I belong; (2) I shall deal with a few theoretical problems relating to my own personal experience with supervision.
At the end of World War II, psychoanalytic training in France was resumed. A curriculum was organized and a teaching committee was set up. The Psychoanalytic Institute was founded in 1952. Before that, the training psychoanalyst sent the candidate to one of his colleagues when he believed the moment was appropriate for supervision.
After an initial selection procedure, the Psychoanalytic Institute established a mode of evaluation to determine when candidates might be allowed to begin what was called “controlled” analyses. Each candidate had to be favorably evaluated as to his technical capacity to conduct two analytic treatments, both under collective supervision.