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Editing a collection of psychoanalytic papers for annual publication is a task of impressive magnitude. Achieving and maintaining high standards of scholarship and originality increase the complexity of that task. Although there is unevenness in the quality of this collection, the
majority of the papers will be of interest to many psychoanalysts.
This annual is dedicated to the memory of Dr Joan Fleming. It contains twenty-one papers arranged in four sections. The four sections are entitled Psychoanalytic Education, Theoretical Studies, Psychoanalytic History, and Applied Psychoanalysis.
The section on psychoanalytic education is edited by Paul Dewald. In his foreword Dewald writes about Joan Fleming's dedication and outstanding contributions to psychoanalytic education. Many of us remember her as our teacher, colleague, and friend.
Some of the writings in this section are refreshingly provocative. Jacob Arlow's psychoanalytic perspective on psychoanalytic education is in that class. Arlow comments on the conservatism of psychoanalytic education. Related to our not having an organized conceptualization of the educational process, an unconscious mythology greatly influences this process. Arlow notes the unending obstacle course of the 'analytic odyssey'. Devising requirements and judging qualifications—admission, progression, graduation, certification—are the central, time consuming topics of interest in the institutes and in the Board on Professional Standards. Within Arlow's metaphor, the training analyst is the one who has overcome all of the obstacles in this long initiation ritual. The fantasied and actual attributed power of the training analyst can be confused easily with an archaic ego ideal.
In Arlow's view, psychoanalytic training, like in any discipline, involves the implanting of a professional attitude, a psychoanalytic identity, as well as the transmission and learning of new knowledge. With our clinging to the past, identification is the pr