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Dr. Ted E. Becker deeply influenced every child and adolescent analyst who was trained at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in the past thirty years. He was an exemplar, mentor, and guide. Dr. Becker personified what an analyst should be—caring, generous, courageous, playful, passionate, strong, and careful. It is an honor to speak about him.
I would like to remember with you what Dr. Becker was like as a teacher. He made his mark on three courses—Universal Fantasies in the adult curriculum and the Continuous Case Seminar and the Technique Seminar in the child analysis program. His gifts as a teacher were such that adult analysts and midcareer child analysts attended his child analysis courses to hear child cases, to learn about child development, and to deepen their understanding of psychoanalysis.
Anyone who studied with Dr. Becker, in the classroom or in supervision, will agree that he was charismatic, clear, and powerful as a teacher. I will try to understand how he did it—both to honor Dr. Becker's memory, and, more importantly, so that we can learn by his example how to teach the next generation of analysts.
The beginning student in child analysis recapitulates the conflicts that candidates have in learning adult analysis and that all patients, adults and children, have in being in analysis. All suffer from a conflict between the wish to understand versus the fear of experiencing the full power of unconscious, infantile feelings. This conflict manifests itself typically in intellectualized defenses. The adult patient wants to read a textbook or to argue theory with the analyst. The child patient wants to discuss sports statistics. The candidate wants to read papers on history or theory or to receive clear rules of technique; for example, is it against the rules to answer questions, accept gifts, or permit action?