Edward Glover's Response to Memorandum by James Strachey

Mr Strachey's approach to the problems with which the Training Committee is faced was evidently influenced by two factors, his concern that teaching methods should not infringe scientific traditions at any point and his interest in the technique of psychoanalysis. In his view ‘the essential criterion of whether a person is fit to conduct a training analysis is not whether his views of aetiology or theory are true but whether his technique is valid’. His practical recommendation is that before touching on the political problems of training, i.e., who should teach and what he should teach, we should decide what are the essentials of a valid psychoanalytical technique. With Mr Strachey's general approach I am of course in entire sympathy; and I believe also that an investigation of technique, in particular of the technique and content of interpretation, would bring to light many important divergences of outlook and method, bearing on our present controversies.

But I do not agree that the training problem is one that can be solved by investigations of technique alone. And this not simply because, in my view, the technique of the teacher is very considerably influenced by his theories but because our practical problem is not concerned solely with technique. There are four main factors in the analytic situation, the analyst, the technique, the transference, and the analysand. To measure the technique without at the same time observing the other factors in the training situation, viz. the training analyst, the transference, and the Candidate would in my opinion be an error in method. It seems to me therefore that Mr Strachey has not fully appreciated the exact nature of the impasse in which the Committee finds itself. And so, before we discuss his