En Umulig Profesjon? Om OpplæRing I Intensiv Dynamisk Psykoterapi. (An impossible profession? On training in intensive dynamic psychotherapy): Siri Erika Gullestad and Mary Theophilakis (eds.). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997.

The position of the university teacher is probably one of the most decisive in influencing development within any profession. This is not to say that any university teacher will in fact be influential – after all, it is a matter of how the person utilizes his or her position, and not exerting potential influence, in a paradoxical way, is also of decisive importance to development within a profession. One of the university teachers who have indeed exerted influence in a way that has been very important for the professional development in his country is Bjørn Killingmo, who retired, in 1997, from his Professorship, after almost 40 years at the Department of Psychology at Oslo University.

At the Psychological Clinic I, Bjørn Killingmo created and directed, for more than 20 years, a training program in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy that is probably unique in Europe – or was, at the time of its start. On his retirement, two of his colleagues and collaborators at the Clinic, Siri Gullestad (who succeeded Killingmo in his chair) and Mary Theophilakis, have edited a collection of papers on training in “intensive dynamic psychotherapy”, as it is called in the title of the volume.

As might be expected, most of the contributors to the anthology are from Norway and most of them have been active as teachers and/or supervisors at the clinic. No surprise, then, that this reader on instruction by instructors, is so very instructive. To my mind, several of the contributions seem very appropriate to use in instruction, both of students preparing for their elementary psychotherapy training and of those who are in training to become supervisors. I believe it could also vitalize seminar teachers and supervisors who have become too experienced and too knowledgeable about psychotherapy training.

For the first group, psychotherapists-to-be, there are a couple of excellent papers: One, by Danish Birgitte Diderichsen, is an exposition of elementary and basic psychotherapeutic co