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Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
At the heart of the psychoanalytic endeavor is the attempt to integrate rather than to disavow, evacuate, or hide from oneself unwanted aspects of the self. In this way, the candidate's experience is itself psychoanalytic. Given the immersive intensity of the learning experience, the candidate often meets, sometimes in painful confr ontations, unfamiliar or previously unacceptable aspects of oneself. This experience occurs through contact with the myriad of theories studied, clinical work that involves new learning, one's own analysis, and one's participation in various groups. It's often a bumpy, circuitous road from psychotherapist to psychoanalyst, with neither familiar markings nor rest stops (classes, analysis four days a week, clinical work, weekends consumed with reading articles and writing, and, oh, personal time somewhere found in breakdowns on the shoulder of the road). The result: a dizzying swirl of constant binding and unbinding. Moments developing a sense of conviction about oneself interspersed with panic-laced doubts about the certainty of anything. Take the uniquely challenging experience of being a beginner at something (psychoanalysis) that one has done for sometimes decades (clinical work). More than once I've winced at a supervisor's suggestion that I'm just learning, had to restrain myself from yelling, “But I'm 60 years old!”, and calmed myself with Ogden's (1992) words: “If the analyst allows himself perpetually to be the beginner that he is, it is sometimes possible to learn about that which he thought he already knew” (p. 225).
I've been forced to grapple with my own needs and desires. I've met my own greed, competitiveness, and selfishness. This is at no time more challenging than when I am conducting a training case (a requirement for progression) and the person talks about prematurely terminating. As fellow candidat