The neglected issue of teaching psychoanalysis to non-practitioners, specifically in the university setting, is addressed and a model is put forward, which recognises the many difficulties that are inevitable to such an undertaking. Evolved in the course of two decades of teaching psychoanalysis at the university, the model is based on the recognition of certain essential parallels, alongside evident differences, between the teaching and learning of psychoanalysis and the analytic process itself. As in analysis, the inevitable difficulties encountered in the teaching–learning process are treated in this model as integral to the process rather than as interfering with it. The analyst teaching psychoanalysis in accord with the model uses his/her skills to create an atmosphere in which the analytic stance is pervasive, which encourages the student to learn in an experientially-near way. Major features of the model are discussed, and ways of examining, evaluating and refining it put forward.