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Changes occurring in the outside world, as well as within psychoanalysis itself, have conspired to demand a reexamination of the structure and aims of psychoanalytic training. Psychoanalytic education from its early beginnings consisted of three parts: the personal analysis of the candidates, the curriculum of studies offered by the analytic societies, and supervision of the candidates' first cases. Of these, personal analysis has been the most important in shaping the student's future attitude toward psychoanalysis. If it ended well, the student tended to follow the footsteps of the analyst; if it did not, he or she tended to gravitate to a competing school.
Freud and Abraham built psychoanalytic education the way they did because psychoanalysis developed outside of the European academic establishment. Both opportunities and dangers of psychoanalytic education stem from the fact that the inclusion of personal analysis makes psychoanalytic education fundamentally different from any other academic discipline. This system has endured since 1910, when the International was founded. I will attempt to enumerate the reasons why it has reached a point of tension today.
1. I agree with Jacob Arlow that one of the difficulties is that Freud's writings still serve as the main text used in psychoanalytic education. Much of Freud's works, particularly the case histories, are no longer useful technical guidelines for the young analyst, although they remain rich in insight. Furthermore, much of what Freud said has been questioned, particularly his views on female sexuality. Add to this the shift to the earliest years of infancy and the greater emphasis on pre-oedipal stresses as well as the centrality of the mother-child relationship and we see why Arlow feels that Freud must be relegated to the history of psychoanalysis. But Freud