The authors believe that important aspects of a psychoanalyst's development can only be accomplished after the completion of training, that potential resistances to learning are not uncommon, and that the first five to ten postgraduate years are critical. A crucial acquisition of this developmental educational phase is a "theoretical identity," a personal theoretical synthesis which requires working through incompletely resolved transferences to Freud, to personal mentors and institutes, and to theory itself. The authors use the example of their own working through experiences while participating in a postgraduate Freud study group and show how a concurrent deepening of their theoretical identities contributed to their maturation as analysts and analytic teachers.