Training for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

It would be well to begin by acknowledging that we are discussing preparation for what has been termed “an impossible profession,” the practice of which concerns not only the infinite vagaries of the human mind but also the fact that our own psychology and personality are so much involved in the pursuit of our technical tasks. Furthermore, the integration of the knowledge and skills acquired during training demands a long period of seasoning. The best-planned, best-organized training program cannot preempt the new learning that comes from experience. Nonetheless, the training program is an organized experience that we wish our candidates to go through to prepare them in the best way for the work ahead.

The weight of the past is a heavy burden on current programs of psychoanalytic training. By and large, psychoanalytic education today rests on a philosophy and a set of practices inherited from the earliest days of its history. Over the years, reflecting upon my own experience as a student, as a teacher, and as one who has listened to many hours of supervision and consultation, I have been impressed at the recurrent difficulties that students trained even in the best of institutes demonstrate. I believe these difficulties can be alleviated through improvement of the training program, particularly the curriculum. I have noted, for example, how often students are confused as to what constitutes data in psychoanalysis, how they mistake observations for interpretation and vice versa, how they misunderstand such basic concepts as transference and the role of counter-transference reactions. Above all, one may observe the difficulties students have in arriving at interpretations, how they confuse analogies with identities, make interpretations outside of context, listen in a stilted fashion, and so forth. The list could be extended at great