The Training Institute and the Clinic

The origin and development of the 'Vienna Training Institute' as a centre for training in the theory and practice of analysis are closely connected with the destinies of the Clinic. The two institutions sprang from a single root; they were separated under the pressure of largely practical necessities and similar reasons hold them linked together.

The principal practical reason for their separation was the official regulation of the authorities which forbade non-medical analysts to work at the Clinic, thus making it necessary to establish another centre for them.

Besides this practical consideration there were other reasons for keeping instruction and therapy separate. For instance, the interest of a clinic centres—and rightly so—in attaining the largest possible number of therapeutic successes; this must therefore guide the selection of patients. For the purposes of training, on the other hand, it is above all necessary to work on those cases which are most fruitful from the didactic point of view.

But precisely this fact is one of the most solid links between the two institutions. For there must be a compromise to serve both needs: the therapeutic aims of the Clinic and the didactic objects of the Training