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Questioning orthodoxy in psychoanalysis has a long tradition and often leads to needed change. Consider Freud's reevaluation of the topographic model (1923), Kohut's reconsideration of oedipally focused psychoanalytic technique (1979), and Kernberg's recasting of the concept of countertransference (1965). In this vein, reconsidering the many facets of the training analysis is a worthy theoretical endeavor. Hardly a day goes by that the current system of training analysis in the United States isn't the focus of a lengthy diatribe on the American Psychoanalytic Association's online discussion page. Much of the discussion revolves around the question of whether the analysis of candidates should be conducted only by a specific cohort of vetted training analysts, or at least about how the vetting should be conducted. Myriad voices with diverse interests have engaged in this discussion, many of which are concerned about power at the level of the institute and within the analytic dyad.
Mitchell Wilson, whose “Putting Practice into Theory: Making the Training Analysis System Coherent” appears in this issue of JAPA, is such a voice. His call for the abolishment of the existing training analyst system begins with the premise that the training analysis should be considered solely therapeutic, not educational. He asserts that the literature supports the view that the best practice for a therapeutic analysis is one in which the analyst maintains a decentered, nonauthoritarian stance. Since he believes that the existing system can give the training analyst special status and authority, Wilson concludes that this system undermines the training analyst's ability to maintain what he considers to be this proper stance. Wilson recalls the warnings of other authors (Racker 1957; Kernberg 1996; Silber 1996),