A Historical Survey on the Teaching of Psychoanalytic Technique1

The sixty or more years of psychoanalytic history can be roughly divided into two equal parts as we evaluate the significance of current discussions concerning the teaching of psychoanalytic technique. The second part of this period, the last thirty years, constitutes the time span of organized psychoanalytic training, a time in which increased interest in the methods of training developed. It is only during this time that we find written evidence concerning issues of training and a developing literature on the subject which reflects a lively intellectual and frequently emotional struggle about training techniques. In his Presidential address in 1952 Knight (20) stated that most of the issues during the stormy history of the psychoanalytic development contributing occasionally to organizational difficulties, the splits of old, and the foundation of new institutes, had to do with issues of training.

The first period of psychoanalysis, a very creative one, could be considered ahistorical as far as the study of training methods is concerned. Balint (3) and Szasz (35) similarly speak of a prehistoric period. There are no documents explicitly investigating issues of training. This period is one in which the founder of psychoanalysis and the first generation of analysts were so very much engaged in the development of the science and in the struggle for recognition that little direct thought was given to technical issues