Some Thoughts on the Role of Independent Report Reading in Psychoanalytic Training

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role, functions, and dynamics of report reading as an important ingredient of clinical education in general, and psychoanalytic training in particular. There are no standards agreed upon for the role of independent Reader. Indeed, not all institutes for training psychoanalysts and psycho-analytically informed clinicians have Readers as part of their educational structure. When I started to think about the role of Reader, I had more questions than answers.1 As far as I have been able to determine, nothing has been published on the Reader's role in a psychoanalytic program. Since there is also very little written about standardized outcomes for student learning, most beginning Readers learn about making report evaluations through their experiences as candidates or as a supervisors of candidates. Such a state of affairs is not, of course, unique to psychoanalytic programs Reliance on subjective judgements for evaluating is characteristic of most clinical programs, in or outside of the university, especially when evaluating practicum performance. This paper will contribute to articulating a rationale for reading, its functions, and the criteria for evaluating student progress.

Perhaps the reason so little has been written on report evaluation is that the topic is not nearly so exciting as, say, an exploration of clinical problems or of the therapeutic process. A parallel might be a comparison between the study of English composition and of English literature. If learning about clinical processes is like studying English literature, then inquiring into the mechanics of report writing is like studying English composition: necessary, even fundamentally important, but not nearly