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The issue of psychoanalytic education has been a major and much discussed concern from the very inception of our discipline. Since all education must respond to ever-changing expectations and reflect our expanding body of information, insights, and research methods it behooves us to reexamine periodically the ways in which we psychoanalysts become educated and educate our students.
In the following I shall briefly review the history of psychoanalytic education and its implications for current conditions. Then I shall list some major challenges confronting analysts today and, finally, I shall propose some educational principles and policies that I believe need to be considered to ensure the continued growth and development of our science and profession as we enter the second century of psychoanalysis.
Freud was concerned about the growth, development, and dissemination of psychoanalysis, but for ten years he worked “in splendid isolation” as the only psychoanalyst (Freud, 1914). Others learned about the new science through his writings and in personal exchanges with him.
From 1902 onward a number of young doctors and some interested lay persons gathered around Freud to learn the theories and practice of psychoanalysis. Regular weekly meetings took place in his home. Five years later, under the leadership of Bleuler and Jung, the Zurich School of Psychiatry began some systematic teaching of psychoanalysis. In 1909, upon invitation of Professor G. Stanley Hall, Freud, accompanied by Jung and Adler, travelled to the United States and presented the first comprehensive review