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I AM INDEBTED TO DR. FLEMING FOR REMINDING ME of the quotation from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes to the effect that a page of history is worth a volume of logic. As psychoanalysts we have long been taught that hysterical patients suffer mainly from reminiscences. All mankind is victim of its own history. Analysts are no exceptions. In this presentation I propose to reflect in a psychoanalytic way on certain dilemmas in psychoanalytic education, dilemmas which indicate how history functions as a persistent dimension of our efforts as teachers of psychoanalysis.
Historical considerations were indeed in the forefront of the thinking of those who proposed and pursued the survey of psychoanalytic education and who helped organize COPE. These factors of history may be discussed under four headings.
1The cultural lag
2The ecology of institutes
3Recurrent splits in institutes
4The role of the training analyst
At a previous plenary session devoted to psychoanalytic education I commented on the relation between philosophy and practice in conducting programs of psychoanalytic training. Statements of principles boldly enunciated in the official catalogues or brochures of the institutes are not at all reliable indicators of the philosophy guiding the educational program. The real philosophy is empirically determined; it becomes eloquently clear in the institutional practices, in the organization, and in the implementation of the curriculum.