The Dynamics of Training Analysis1

The training of future analysts is such an important issue that we may well ask ourselves why so few papers are devoted to it. This is especially true of training analysis. Searching for an answer we cannot avoid using analytical methods. Suffice it to say that it cannot be without relevance that there is a very wide gap between the formal training of the older members and that of the younger ones. This might be supposed to foster unconscious guilt feelings with the appropriate defence mechanisms among the older generation and a wish to assert themselves by quantitative measures among the newcomers. The situation may be illustrated by a typical association during training analysis: 'You, my analyst, have been analysed for 300 hours by a man who was analysed for 150 hours by someone who was not analysed at all.' This simple reflection poses problems which too many analysts are apt to avoid.

In other words, we ought to ask ourselves how evolution in our science is possible. But many other questions will arise in this connexion. Has the quantitative factor been overrated? Is the choice of future analysts more or less important than their training? Is there a qualitative difference between training and therapeutic analysis? And last but not least: Would it not be possible to investigate the results of different types of selection and training?

The starting-point of my reflections has been the impression, by no means original, that the type of candidates for training has been changing rapidly during these last decades. The analyst of the twenties was a pronounced idealist (although a fighter against ideals!), a champion of a cause, who was prepared to take arms against a sea of troubles. Latter-day analysts have a more matter-of-fact attitude, since analysis has become a stepping-stone in one's career instead of a forlorn hope. The new motivations are certainly less neurotic, but nevertheless some of us are apt to deplore the change.

The consequences have al