In order to re-examine the standards for analytic training that the IPA has required of its constituent organizations and their institutes, a new IPA Education Committee (EC) was formed in 2005. Its task was to study in greater detail the three models of education recognized by the IPA (Eitingon, French, and Uruguayan) that are, with some variations, currently in use. Members of the committee are chair, Shmuel Erlich (Israel), Sander M. Abend (American APsaA), Aloysio d'Abreu (Brazil), Marie France Dispaux (Belgium), Fernando Weissmann (Argentina), and I. Otto Kernberg (American APsaA) serves as consultant.
In its first meeting in New York, December 17-18, 2005, the EC decided on the method for better understanding the three models. The committee members divided into three teams, each team charged with studying one of the models by interviewing leading educators associated with the particular model. This stage of the work was completed in April 2006. The IPA board accepted the final report of the EC, written by Erlich, in July 2006. The three models of education it described were established as the minimum standards and criteria of qualification and admission to IPA membership. As the EC report was primarily descriptive, the same committee has now been asked by the board to codify their findings into “minimal standards or requirements” under each of the models. Should the board approve these standards in July in Berlin, they will aid the IPA in carrying out its oversight and consultative functions.
Educators selected from the three different models of training were asked a number of questions: 1) Could they describe the rationale and philosophy that underlie their model? 2) Was there a greater emphasis on breadth of knowledge and experience versus depth (e.g., study of one theory or many, the frequency with which analysands were to be seen)? 3) What concept of the process and progression of psychoanalytic education was manifest in their model? 4) How were power and authority structured within their model?
All three models employ, in some form, a tripartite model of education: didactics, personal analysis, and supervision. The terms used to describe the different models are not meant to imply any geographical limitations as to where models are employed. What follows will be only a brief description of the EC findings. The full report may be obtained from the offices of the IPA.
The education of an analyst requires three equally important components: a training analysis, a determined didactic curriculum, and supervised analytic experience. That these three parts of the education should take place simultaneously is thought desirable. Although there are many attempts to further democratize education under this system, the Eitingon model often places the investment of power in the person and role of the training analyst and in the Education or Training Committee made up primarily of TAs. A candidate must have an analysis with a TA, who is non-reporting. It is expected, however, that the training analysis will be conducted on a frequency of four to five times a week. Candidates, too, are expected to see their three required analytic patients at the same frequency.
In terms of breadth and depth, there is no unanimity among the users of this model. In North America there is a tendency to favor wider exposure to analytic theories, reflecting course offerings in a variety of approaches and theories. Nevertheless, there does seem to be agreement about the desirability of teaching a core Freudian conflict theory.
The personal analysis of the candidate is placed strictly outside the realm of training. The French model does not recognize a “training” analysis and has no position of training analyst. Any analyst who is an IPA member can do the candidate's analysis. One of the major goals of the personal analysis is to clarify and work out the unconscious motivations behind one's wish to become an analyst. This analytic work takes place, for the most part, prior to the candidate's application for admission to training. There are no training requirements governing the frequency of personal analyses. Patient and analyst, based on clinical indications, decide upon the number of visits per week.
In the French model power and authority seem more diffuse. The Training Committee is within the psychoanalytic society to which it is democratically answerable. There is no independent psychoanalytic institute that is established as a separate entity. Although there is no position of training analyst, one needs to be appointed as a supervising analyst, a position of some prestige. Supervision is often conducted in groups with emphasis on understanding of the countertransference. Much of the training focuses on Freud's writings and current explorations of it.
This model is, in part, a reaction to what was felt to be a previously existing excessive concentration of power in a group of training analysts. It represents an attempt to ensure that training becomes a more democratic, free, and equitable endeavor. It attempts to do so by allocating training functions to four different groups of analysts, each charged with organizing and conducting one specific aspect of training: admission, supervision, personal analysis, and teaching. A graduate analyst can choose to which group he or she wishes to belong.
A considerable amount of personal analysis is required (usually three years or more) before admission and is expected to continue during training, usually another five years. Personal analysis is conducted at a minimum of three times a week with intensification of frequency during periods of significant regression. The analyst needs to be a member of the IPA.
Daniel H. Jacobs, M.D., is a training and supervising analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, supervising analyst at the Florida and Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institutes, and director of the Center for Advanced Psychoanalytic Studies. In June, he will become co-director of APsaA's Committee on Institutes.
In the course work, there is emphasis placed on a great deal of written work and numerous presentations.
There are other differences in and among these models. In the Eitingon model, for instance, analysis of defenses is often prominent, while such a focus seems within the French model to be a psychotherapeutic undertaking and outside the realm of psychoanalysis. In the Uruguayan model of training, there is a strong epistemological position that psychoanalysis is a conjectural rather than an exact science. The educational emphasis is less on the transmission of intellectual knowledge than on a growing capacity for listening and a developed conviction about the power of the unconscious.
It is interesting to note that two of the three models (Uruguayan and French) require analysis before application for candidacy. The emphasis on understanding the unconscious reasons for choosing to be an analyst is given much more weight in the admissions process than it is in most North American institutes. Two of the three have abolished the position of training analyst. One model (the French) has no requirements in terms of frequency of analytic sessions. In the Uruguayan model teachers must make a choice of where they will focus their efforts, thus diminishing the possibilities of any clique developing. The report did not explore what the minimal educational requirements were for acceptance to training under each model.
The EC and the IPA board recognize the actual construction of training programs based on these basic models vary greatly throughout the world. How the workings of each of these models as described in the EC report can be codified into acceptable minimal standards for analytic education remains to be seen. Determining the extent to which societies will be asked to adhere to the model they profess will be the task of the IPA Board Oversight Working Group. Certainly, comparing and contrasting, discussing and debating these different models of analytic training can only enrich us all.