Analytic Training and Training Analysis1

The greatest mistake we could make would be to consider our present training system as a final, or even settled, solution of our many problems. In fact this is far from being the truth. The present system is only one more step in a long development, after many previous steps have been found faulty in one respect or another, and it is quite certain that future generations will form the same opinion of our present system. This symposium will then stand to our credit, that at least we were conscious that there were problems to be faced.

What I have said about our training system as a whole holds true of its most important part, the training analysis. The history of training analysis could be described as consisting to date of five periods, 2 to which I will give not quite correct but short and convenient names, so that we may talk about them. The first period was that of pure instruction, done mainly by the pupil himself, almost without any help from outside, simply by reading Freud's books. Soon after, the need for something more than intellectual knowledge was recognized, and the 'something more' consisted of a short analysis lasting some weeks to some months, which enabled the candidate to experience in his own mind the validity and force of the main psycho-analytical findings. This second period I shall call the 'period of demonstration', and I would like to quote a very early, perhaps the earliest, description of it by Freud himself in two unpublished latters to Ferenczi. The English translation is mine. 22 October, 1909. 'Eitingen is here. Twice weekly, after dinner, he comes with me for a walk and has his analysis during it.' 10 November, 1909. 'Eitingen, who has fetched me twice weekly for an evening walk during which he has had his analysis, is coming for the last time next Friday; he intends to settle for a year in Berlin.'

A later and much more explicit description of it is given by Freud in 'Analysis Terminable and Interminable' (1937): 'For pra