The Korea Guest Study Group of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) comprises approximately 45 members longing to learn and practice psychoanalysis. They also yearn to belong to the larger universe of psychoanalysis, much as we all do when starting out, whether as an individual, an isolated group of therapists, or an institute.
An integral component of the IPA endeavor to help psychoanalysis develop in Korea is the Korea Advisory Committee (KAC), (Sander Abend, chair, Robert Tyson, Georg Bruns of Germany, Melvin Lansky and I, with Owen Renik, an adjunct member) which oversees and assists the development and progress of this group. In October 2004, the KAC developed an experimental, intensive four-day didactic and clinical seminar in San Francisco, attended by 20 members of the Guest Study Group. It was followed by a similar event in 2005, and one is planned in 2006. The core faculty comprised Abend, Tyson, Lansky and me, along with Michelle Stewart and Jim Dimon. The meetings, primarily arranged and coordinated by Tyson, ran each year from Thursday through Sunday, from 8:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., with lunch together every day, and a celebratory dinner on Saturday.
Each faculty member presented a paper on one of the mornings on a different theoretical or clinical concept. The remainder of the program consisted of multiple small groups with case presentations and discussions from the Korean attendees. The groupings of students changed throughout the days as they rotated among five simultaneous groups led by the core faculty. Several additional IPA training analysts from the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute (SFPI), volunteering two to six hours each, joined one or another of us throughout the program, thereby adding exposure to a variety of points of view.
It was exhausting and rewarding for us all, teachers and students alike. The eagerness, intelligence, commitment, and hunger to learn psychoanalysis on the part of our Korean colleagues were infectious. They expressed great appreciation for the valuable clinical experience as well as the boost to their group morale. And despite having to pay for travel, a small registration fee plus their living expenses, and giving up work and family time, they voted unanimously to continue this as an annual event.
These budding psychoanalysts study in other and all ways imaginable—some go regularly to San Diego for abbreviated courses of study in the APsaA institute there; others have episodic durations of intensive and meaningful psychoanalysis; many have long-distance telephone supervision with psychoanalysts in various parts of the world; at least one has graduated from the Cleveland Institute, and another has had some exposure at the British Psychoanalytic. Together they read Freud and those who have followed, as well as papers on technique, metapsychology, and new and old controversies. Additionally, the KAC is helping them create not only a more comprehensive integration between their readings and their guest clinician/lecturers but also an overall curriculum based on their long distance learning.
This last is a major aspect of the Korean learning experience, consisting as it does of psychoanalysts from around the world visiting Seoul to teach, and, in turn, learn. The Koreans are marvelous hosts who help make the complex cultural and intellectual exchange meaningful for all of us. As just one example, last year, I went to Seoul for six days, giving a theoretical lecture followed by several days during which cases were presented to me for extended discussion and teaching. The whole of the Guest Study Group, whose members range in age, levels of theoretical sophistication, and clinical experience, participated in conversation and questions, many questions. Our mutual exchange of ideas was very rewarding.
Although an apparent and vexing contradiction, it is very clear that both rigorous thinking and creative, non-standard teaching conditions sometimes can combine to produce exciting educational outcomes. Seizing the moment allows the Koreans to move forward into the broader mainstream of our profession. It is the willingness to grow, join, share, and inspire a love of psychoanalysis in others that ensures our longevity as a profession. After sufficient analysis, supervision, and academic preparation, our colleagues present themselves for evaluation in order to become Direct Members of the IPA; three have successfully accomplished this important goal. We are all intellectually and professionally energized by this international endeavor.
Barbara Stimmel, Ph.D., an APsaA member, is recent past-president of the New York Freudian Society (NYFS), training and supervising analyst of NYFS and IPA, North American chair of the IPA Congress, Berlin-2007.