The Training Analysis and its Place in Psycho-Analytic Training1

The majority of psycho-analysts agree that the personal analysis represents the most essential part of the preparation for becoming an analyst. But there is also a consensus of opinion that the training analysis per se, especially if carried out in large training institutes, shows a number of peculiarities which are apt to complicate its course as compared with the free floating process of the therapeutic analysis of our patients. Some of the factors which I shall discuss in the following pages are of minor significance, others ask for special consideration, and again others may, if well handled, be even of help in mastering this difficult task. Anna Freud is said to have formulated the problem as follows: 'A training analysis is characterized by the analyst's having social contact with his patient and making the major decisions for him'. These major decisions are furthermore aggravated by the fact that the analyst not only interferes with the analysand's own decisions, but—as Kubie pointed out in a panel on Training2—he also loses his position as the neutral and understanding parental figure and turns into the dreaded judge. His expected criticism is anxiously circumvented by the candidate and he is constantly suspected of hostile reactions which may destroy the candidate's training opportunity. Kubie felt that this problem can hardly be solved within the didactic analysis, but may have to await a later, second analysis, after graduation and membership have already been secured. It is certainly correct that the second analysis often proves infinitely easier and may under the circumstances described yield important material which had remained repressed—or even hidden—during the first analytic process; but it does not solve the problem as long as we cannot achieve the paradox of beginning the training with this second analysis.

Others, like Franz Alexander and the Chicago Institute, attempted to circumvent this truly difficult problem by 'removing' the prepara