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Since a personal analysis is a necessary condition for the training of psychoanalysts, this makes psychoanalysis very different from the preparation required of other scientists. For this requirement of a double role in training (that of
analyst and of analysand) the word "transmission" seems more apt than "education." However, transmission has connotations of being mechanical, leaving out of account the unexpected and spontaneous. It even suggests hereditary transmission, as well as a sort of irrational transmission by faith, or transmission of thought. Perhaps a better comparison would be to the sort of transmission which occurs between artisans as they transmit a skill. Yet we cannot limit transmissions to this, for, as Freud pointed out, psychoanalysis is also an investigative method and a psychological theory. Education is involved in the transmission of the theory just as in the transmission of any body of scientific knowledge. Further, the theory must be confronted with other psychological theory and meet issues of validation. Psychoanalysis is transmitted only to those who practice it, that is, future analysts. But we must recognize that it also belongs to the world. Psychoanalytic organizations should assure a good diffusion of knowledge rather than complain of vulgarization. This is important for the future of psychoanalysis, with its wide-ranging effects on human relations, e.g., in child-rearing, preventive medicine, etc.