Psychoanalysis: training or learning?

I am disappointed by the  new psychoanalyst’s he level of knowledge of the basic psychoanalytic concepts, and the way they understand and use the works of the main prominent creative psychoanalysts of the past. I base my dissatisfaction on what I regularly read in four main psychoanalytic journals.  My dissatisfaction does not come from disagreeing with what they publish, but from the distorted idea of psychoanalysis which they convey in their works, and using- in inappropriate ways- the works of genuinely creative minds of the past. I lived the glorious days of the splits in the British and the French societies, the rise and fall of ego psychology in the USA, and the birth of the schools of psychoanalysis. Yet, there was always a well protected and preserved core of psychoanalysis among the adversaries, i.e., there were somethings too fundamental to be distorted to fit a debate; the place of the unconscious (not the repressed) in the psychical phenomena, the place of the primary process in interpreting the patient’s material, and the significance of the transference in the psychoanalytic situation. I think the explanation of that unspoken agreement amongst the old and senior analysts came from firm, sturdy and well conducted system of training. We were all trained in psychoanalysis whatever the institute belonged or dominated by some prevailing ideas. I believe that the reason behind what I consider deterioration in contemporary psychoanalysis relates to training more than any other offered causes. That is what I want to discuss in this post. To be clear from the beginning, I am critical of the current attempts to modify, improve, and correct the flaws of the institute system of training despite the serious and sincere intentions of the people who are trying that. I will explain.   

First, I think the tripartite system of training was very logical at the start of the psychoanalytic movement. It guaranteed proper competence in practicing psychoanalysis. However, we have to remember that in the time Abraham and later Eitingon the theory of psychoanalysis was still evolving and there was more than a decade before Freud come to write “The Outline”. Moreover, despite Freud’s remarkable insights regarding the practice of psychoanalysis, which he wrote in 1912, there was little appreciation of its deep understanding of the process of psychoanalysis (I wrote a more extensive version of this idea in my book explaining the classical theory). All in all, psychoanalysis did not have a stable body of knowledge or a clear system of practice that correspond to that theory at the time. Training was necessarily done in institutes. All trades (and psychoanalysis at that early period was merely a budding trade) were doing that in the system of guilds that was the foundation of the industrial revolution and the birth of academia too.

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1.The link between training and the theory:

It took the psychoanalytic movement three decades or more to come up with the notion of training the new comers to the movement. At the beginning, training was not the main objective but was the means to screen membership to the movement, and to give the message that recognising one’s affiliation to the movement has to be legitimate by the approval of the already recognised analysts, who ‘founded’ of the movement. This sensible condition became sort of tradition. The objective was very modest and legitimate at the time, because psychoanalysis was merely a new discipline looking for an identity (despite the majority of its members were physicians, some were not and Freud was of the opinion that it does not belong solely to medicine). Thus, establishing institutes for training was very logical because psychoanalysis as a new discipline with very little true literature to learn from had to rely on the old and experienced generation to transmit to the new generation their experience and knowledge; particularly in a one-to-one basis.

In the early phase of building the movement the three branches of training-seminars, supervision, and personal analysis- proved to be the natural and the only available way to transmit experience and knowledge; through personal contact. There was no way to show how analysis is done but by undergoing a period of personal analysis (that it is how it gained the title of didactic analysis). I do not remember the name of the analyst who suggested that didactic analysis is also essential so the psychoanalyst could get rid of his own difficulties. Supervision was also didactic in a more concrete sense of the term. The formation of local communities of analysts initiated the idea of systematizing revision of the available literature, and the seminars were established as the third leg in the tripod of training. Better, training reflected the state of affair in psychoanalysis at the time of its onset, and aimed at transmitting the experience of the old to the new in the fashion of training.

Up till Freud’s passing psychoanalysis was continuing the discovering the intrapsychical and exploring its transformations. As an example, Freud’s discovering of the contribution of infantile sexuality in psychical conflict brought out the notion of the sexual Trieb the ego Trieb. This polarity evolved to eventually become life and death polarity. The cathartic theory evolved into a theory of psychical transformations and constructs (I wrote about Freudian’s other theory that should replace the cathartic theory in 2013). However, Freud kept chasing a final configuration of his discoveries till the end, and maybe gave in to his daughter by accepting her version of ego psychology as a final articulation of the theory. Understandably, training changed into a refined, elaboration, and expansion of the demands of the tripartite system, and founding the institute model of training as the only way of learning psychoanalysis. However, Anna Freud’s presumption that the theory has already been completed, and it only needs to be practiced as such was heading for a big surprise: She just identified the beginning of psychoanalysis. 

While Anna Freud thought that ego psychology is the final version of a theory of the intrapsychical Melanie Klein was turning her attention from exploring the intrapsychical to its origin and early formation.   Her contribution was almost declaring the end of the Road for the Freudian psychology and the beginning of using it to explore something seriously new about the subject. The difference between A. Freud’s mechanisms of defense and Klein’s projective identification was like one closing the door on something established and the other is opening the door for crossing that established limit. Anna Freud calcified and reified the intrapsychical by making a neat description of its content, while Klein gave it life by showing its interpersonal origin and relational framework. Psychoanalysis was stepping out of Freud’s original frame work, thus was changing. Training remained the same tripartite system but personal analysis was expected to become more intense to meet the Kleinian conception of the intrapsychical. Although Kleinianism was not the school of thought in France, for instance, the extended length of time for personal analysis was adopted by the two traditional societies ( while the Lacanians made sort of a mockery of it). They added another aspect to personal analysis in training: a period of personal analysis before applying for training. I think this was a reflection of considering personal analysis separate from training and should be a matter of agreement between analyst and analysand.

The end of pure Freudian psychoanalysis of pressure, defense, and decathecting as the main intrapsychical dynamics, and the rise of psychoanalysis of the processes and transformations was a major theoretical change. Nonetheless it did not affect training in any noticeable way! It is an important question but answering it needs more examination of changes in psychoanalysis itself.

The distinction psychoanalysts made between ‘drive’ psychology and ‘relational’ psychology was interesting, useful but wrong. Classical psychoanalysis was not a drive psychology but of Trieb: the psychology of the representation of a wish in the mind. A representation of a wish IS the psychical, and comes as a manifest that has a content that necessitates its discovery by psychoanalysis. The psychology of the interpersonal is the psychology of the birth of the subject within early relations with the caregivers and the re-emergence of old relational configurations in the contemporary interpersonal relations of the subject. Better, Klein’s psychoanalysis was turning Trieben into be a bridge between the past and the present.  

Could that change have required revision of training and its parochial system? Yes, but the flawed distinction between drive psychology and relational psychology distracted us from the main issue. Nonetheless, it introduced to the training a novel issue in the practice of psychoanalysis: what is the best aspect of psychoanalysing that could reveal the unconscious link between the manifest and the latent in a psychical event? Without paying much attention to the nature of the Kleinian breakthrough analysts (unconsciously) were stated to look for the best method to reach the unconscious link between the manifest (the patient’s complaint) and its content. Better, analysts noticed that they have a chance to read in the patient’s interpersonal relations the unconscious link between the manifest and the latent. In the seventies of last century, the psychoanalytic scene exploded with the schools, which were merely the choice the analysts make in practicing psychoanalysis. 

The schools of psychoanalysis do not offer novel theories of the psyche as the followers think or prefer to think. The schools are not more than a preference of the medium the analyst choses to look for the unconscious. Arguing this point more and better would show that psychoanalysis (training) has to respond to those changes.

In the next section I will address a thorny topic: Does the idea of training the psychoanalysts serves psychoanalysis or hurts it?