Editors' Introduction

Freud occasionally commented on the teaching of psychoanalysis and the personal requirements necessary for the psychoanalyst. On one such occasion he paused to reflect (1937):

Here let us pause for a moment to assure the analyst that he has our sincere sympathy in the very exacting demands he has to fulfil in carrying out his activities. It almost looks as if analysis were the third of those “impossible” professions in which one can be sure beforehand of achieving unsatisfying results. The other two, which have been known much longer, are education and government [p. 248].

It is the purpose of psychoanalytic training programs to teach students the psychoanalytic profession, thus involving themselves in two impossible professions simultaneously: education and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic institutes, according to this view, can thus be assured of achieving unsatisfactory results in teaching students a profession in which they in turn can look forward to unsatisfying results.

When the above considerations are added to the present low esteem in which psychoanalysis is held by the public, it would seem as if psychoanalytic institutes should have written above their portals “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” (see Roiphe, this issue, pp. 379-387).

Yet we persist. There is something about psychoanalysis that draws certain people to its study, practice, and teaching. It is to those who have dedicated their lives to psychoanalysis that we dedicate this issue on Psychoanalytic Education.

This will be the first of a series of issues devoted to the topic of Psychoanalytic Education. In making this effort, we suppose that we too can look forward to unsatisfying results. Yet the subject is so important to the future of psychoanalysis that we believe the effort is well worth it.

We will devote the bulk of this issue to Psychoanalytic Clinical Education, in other words, to clinical supervision. We will begin with a