The Crisis: Is it Psychoanalysis or the IPA:

It is very important for this post to be put in its proper context for me to say that the psychoanalysis I am talking about here is that which the IPA claims to be the original classical one that it was entrusted, over a century ago, to promote and preserve. Psychoanalysis exists and thrives in some academic centers in many parts of the world. Yet, the IPA claims an original authoritative  legitimacy that stands as an obstacle in making psychoanalysis something more than the psychotherapy it imparts in its training institutes, producing a vague sort of a profession. 

Of late, it is noticeable that there are obvious concerns in the IPA community about the declining status and appeal of psychoanalysis. Just to show the nature of that concern I quote an exchange between two responsible and senior analysts about that matter. The first says: “…. North America had the fewest number of psychoanalytic candidates in training among the IPA’s regions, I have been thinking about ways in which the IPA could help …. to increase that number”. The other analyst commented by saying: “Institutes around the country, . . . have found that efforts put into the promotion of diversities can have multiple benefits, including an increase in the number of candidates (my emphasis) and clinical opportunities for them”. Most the discussions about the present predicament of psychoanalysis comes to the same point: the number of candidates in the IPA institutes. Worse, there is no mention in the rest of the exchange, and the ongoing discussions,  of the possible causes of that phenomenon or the benefits of increasing the number of candidates (since there is agreement on the declining number of patients seeking psychoanalysis for treatment).

Does the crisis we are facing pertain to something happening to the IPA and its membership, or pertains to something with psychoanalysis it advocates that makes it lose its status? Because I believe that the lack of interest in psychoanalysis shows only when we look at the IPA and its institutes. I wanted to underline two basic ideas: not all the psychoanalyses offered outside the IPA institutes are psychoanalysis, and that not all the psychoanalyses offered in the IPA institutes are psychoanalysis especially those that are offered under the guise of “a School”.

It was difficult to get any official or unofficial information from the IPA on the condition of psychoanalysis and training in the different parts of the world. Because of that difficulty I tried to get information directly about the from 11 different societies in Europe and South America. Not one was able to say that things are OK, four admitted having difficulties, the rest did not even go that far to disclose any information. In 1975 I asked casually about the number of analysts in the USA. I was given an unofficial figure that was close to the total number of analysts in world now. Only lately we got some statistics about the membership and the candidates in training from the IPA. Therefore, it is only logical to say that the crisis now is a crisis of the IPA, because of the dwindling number of memberships threatens its existence. However, I mentioned before that the relationship between psychoanalysis and the IPA is bad for both, because psychoanalysis is a theory that should not have organizational restrictions put on its progress, advancement, and reaching for farther horizons, which requires continued modifications in the system of learning and training. Even though IPA is supposedly an only membership organization, it still maintains and continues the early function of ‘psychoanalytic education and training’. This function was given to it due to certain circumstances related to the early initiation of psychoanalysis, which do not exist anymore. It is not proper or useful for the IPA to continue doing that, which is now interferes with its fundamental and its natural function of protecting psychoanalysis from deviating, deteriorating, stagnating, and dying. The IPA is not supposed to be both the teacher and the overseer of education. In another way of putting it, the training institutes of psychoanalysis are run by the IPA which is supposed to investigate, cheque, evaluate, and certify the quality of their learning\training programs. This is a violation of the most obvious rule of credibility.

My post is not about the credibility of training in the IPA institutes or the IPA’s latest attempts at reviving psychoanalysis. I want to bring to attention the role the IPA is playing in the deterioration of psychoanalysis and taking it to the verge of disappearing. We all know that there is no serios principle of checking the proficiency of any IPA training institute. This is logical and right because we have no clear system of teaching psychoanalysis and no criteria for assessing training. This is the case under the present conditions of training in IPA institutes, because of a very subtle but plainly missed reason. We might have a structure for training (the tripartite components of seminars, personal analysis, and supervision) but we have no uniformal functional definitions of those components.  If by horrific effort we could agree on a curriculum (a) for the seminars will not be able to do that with the other two legs of the stool.

 The IPA is concerned about its future as an ‘organization’ not about psychoanalysis as its professional reference. However, because the IPA assumes a major role in the formation -training- of the psychoanalysts and could also wield the power of accrediting training and granting membership, it becomes the tail that wags the dog. There is an inherent structure in the IPA of a hierarchy of positions and functions which come with some privileged statuses. It is an attractive and corrupting residual of the early days of the IPA. It still seeps down to the regional and local societies creating a self-destructive union between training and membership. The concerns of the IPA and the local societies about membership and recruitment shows in bursts of energy-every now and then- to vitalize the interest in psychoanalysis which are, in fact, concerns about the IPA and its future. For the last forty years psychoanalysis was distorted, infused with strange if not weird ideas, and is left to eventually will not exist. I mean that there wil come a time when we should not worry about psychoanalysis because it will not exist anymore.   

The Uselessness and Usefulness of the IPA:

The IPA served its purpose of protecting and growing the psychoanalytic movement for almost half a century. It established its prototype in all the culturally advances societies. It even found its way to the USA and managed to navigate its way in the turbulence of ‘the medical vs. none medical’. Duplicating its training institutes everywhere it existed does not need any comment. The IPA was with no doubt Freud’s smart idea. However, the fast success of the analytic movement tempted most members to assume the attitude of the different, the special, and the better, which isolated them from the professional base they came from. This trend had to backfire at some point, causing an unhealthy gulf within the wider circle of mental heath providers; we still hear its echoes. It also attracted quite a number of ambitious young professionals who were seeking status more than learning psychoanalysis. The membership of the IPA became aa it still- to an extent- a fringe benefit.

Because psychoanalysis is knowledge and experience it went on changing from merely a psychotherapeutic method to become a science of the human subject. Those changes started with discovering more details about the psychodynamics of the intrapsychic and its origins in childhood. It was also found out that the newly discovered intrapsychic dynamics show in the normal and natural expressions and manifestations of character formation and in interpersonal relationships. The range of psychoanalysis, both theoretically and involvement kept widening, and it was not possible to fit it anymore in the old training institutes of the IPA. Analysis requires a different setting to extends its reach. If not, it will disintegrate into schools, as mentioned above. Psychoanalysis has to become an academic program. This is happening now in many reputable academic set ups but the full power of this movement is hindered by the continued existence if the IPA institutes of training. The situation is like keeping the apprentice system of training physicians along with modern academic medicine.  

 What will happen if analysts failed, willed, worked on the demise of the IPA? Would psychoanalysis suffer from that or benefit? The answer with confidence will thrive and very likely will enter a new golden age. There is no place in the world that does not have some psychoanalytic activity. In those places or near by, a psychoanalytic establishment in the form of a university program or and academic intuition exists; next to the IPA organization if there is a psychoanalytic society in the vicinity. Thus, analysis will not disappear and the old belief that the IPA is the only “legitimate” base of psychoanalysis will eventually lose its credibility. However, this movement to change  has to be organized  to avoid some drawbacks of replacing the old with the new  without preparation. Bottom line, they cannot and should not coexist.