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This paper is the first chapter of a book entitled, Talks to Students of Psychoanalysis, which Ella Sharpe was engaged in writing at the time of her death. In it she discusses the qualifications of the student and the rationale of the various training procedures, with particular stress on the pungent reasons for a deep personal analysis. In passing, she scotches the 'perfection myth' inherent in the phrase 'completely analyzed'. 'Such phrases betray an unconscious standard of perfection in the mind of the speaker which has little relationship to the facts of human nature' and 'which is not the goal of analytic endeavor'. She goes on to describe some of the many pitfalls awaiting the poorly trained psychoanalyst: various countertansference problems, problems of identification, motivations based on unresolved infantile conflicts and the unconscious seeking for childhood gratifications from his relationship with his patients. Throughout the paper, and particularly in its closing paragraphs, Ella Sharpe makes many illuminating observations and offers much homely advice which will be welcomed by students and may perhaps disturb some of the rationalizations of 'the complacent ones'.