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Some years ago, in the context of a discussion with a colleague about ways to increase the creativity of candidates in psychoanalytic training, that colleague told me, with a smile: “Our problem is not so much to foster creativity but to try not to inhibit the creativity naturally stimulated by the nature of our work” (Lore Schacht, personal communication). Her comment triggered memories and observations in the course of my studying, teaching and participating in psychoanalytic education in different psychoanalytic societies and institutes. I decided to gather these observations, discuss them with colleagues, and finally, put together in a negative format, what, at the bottom, is a plea for the fostering of psychoanalytic creativity. For a positive format of this study, I refer the reader to Chapter 3, in which I present a systematic analysis of the relationship between organizational structure and functioning of psychoanalytic institutes, on the one hand, and their effects on psychoanalytic education on the other. As an excellent overview of present day problems in psychoanalytic education, Wallerstein’s (1993) summary of the 5th IPA Conference of training analysts in Buenos Aires may serve as an important background to what follows.
The following list of ways to inhibit the creativity of psychoanalytic candidates is not expected to be exhaustive, although, I hope, it covers dominant problems. Here, then, is my advice on how to effectively inhibit creativity in the learning process in our institutes:
Slow down the processing of applications; delay accepting candidates; slow down the provision of information to candidates: this will help to slow them down in turn. If candidates’ progression is systematically slow and cumbersome, if their written case material is subjected to numerous revisions, and, particularly, if long periods of waiting in uncertainty become a regular part of their progression experience, they will tend, in turn, to become slow to respond and to