D. Learning or Training: The Dilemma of Psychoanalysts.

This distinction is seldom mentioned or considered in the psychoanalytic circles. It is the distinction between learning what to know about psychoanalysis and training in psychotherapy, which we are inclined to still call it psychoanalysis.  It is a distinction that is blurred- almost intentionally- by the psychoanalytic institution(s) because if it is clarified and recognized there would be some serious questions about the functions of that institution itself. 

However, let us start with another distinction that was fundamental in the development of psychoanalysis itself. It will prepare for a more comprehensive reply to our main issue. What is the difference between a profession that demands certification to practice, and a craft that only requires apprenticeship? This question is in fact fundamental, because though it is avoided by the psychoanalytic institutions it still preoccupies analysts- more unconsciously than consciously (the endless questioning of psychanalysis itself and what is it really). It arises whenever some particular issues are raised like the schools of psychoanalysis, the training systems, the scientificity of the discipline, etc. It has not gotten an answer yet!!. Without answering to that question, we should not talk about ourselves as psychoanalysts. Psychoanalysis has to prove first that it is a profession and not just a designation in other professions to call ourselves psychoanalysts.

Psychoanalysis started with a few physicians and men of knowledge, who were already influenced by the notions of the subject’s duality (German ideological metaphysics). It started with Freud proving -by using hypnosis- the coexistence of dual streams of thoughts in patients. After a short while he realized that the ordinary speech of the patient could, with some attention to its idiosyncrasy, reveals the second stream of consciousness without hypnosis. Freud and his followers embarked on a process of exploring the human subject-via his psychopathology- by just ‘analyzing’ the duality in his speech. The findings revealed that there are obscure psychodynamic processes that link the two streams of thought.  The processes were active and unconscious. Those revelations required improvising new definitions for the common vocabulary and language used to refer to them (repression, etc). Gradually some sort of theoretical framework of psychopathology emerged. The expansion of Freud’s insights and thru the contributions of his group of inquisitive colleagues a movement was created, which evolved to be what we have now: an international organization that is supervising a self-created training system that qualifies a person as psychoanalyst, if trained in one of its accredited institutes.

The reason of choosing this path to start this part of the posting is to show and underline that the onset of psychoanalysis and the objective of the first Freudian group was an interest in acquiring the skill of analyzing people’s speech, not to create a profession. Even those who sought to practice psychoanalysis as treatment of patients took more than two decades to identify-in a definite way- a psychotherapeutic attribute to psychoanalysis. Knowledge of the “unconscious” changed the curiosity, aim, and the dynamics of the group and created an ambition to practice that skill professionally… by making the unconscious conscious. With the increasing number of people who wanted to join Freud’s group the idea of systematizing training in psychoanalysis emerged and linked with the expansion and the reorganization of the IPA. Training in institutes that are governed and accredited by the IPA was found to be the sensible and a practical thing to do. However, there was no external official independent authority to certify the training and authorize practicing that type of therapy (still there is none). Certification is a precondition in the practice of any professions. Analysts, must come to their membership in the IPA already certified by their specific professional qualification to practice their training in with the public, legally.

In Freud’s discussion of the “Question of Lay Analysis” (1926) he was obviously clear in not considering psychoanalysis a profession. He stated that it is an applied psychology that requires special training but is not enough to constitute a separate and distinct profession. He also talked about psychoanalysis as knowledge which is applicable to other professions. As knowledge that could influence- positively-several other professions it could be- symbiotically- a major player in psychotherapy. As psychoanalysis proves its usefulness and functionality in several fields of the humanities it should be treated as such, and not limit it to psychotherapy and characterize it a profession of psychotherapy. A shift to that perception of psychoanalysis requires a different outlook on who is or could become a psychoanalyst?

Up till now, the graduates of only three clinical professions (Medicine, Psychology, Social Work) are accepted in the training programs of the IPA. This stance confirms that the IPA considers psychoanalysis a clinical discipline only. Since the three specialties are not clinically of similar backgrounds, and are markedly different in their clinical functions, we could safely conclude that the graduates of those three disciplines are accommodated in the IPA training in psychoanalysis because they are ‘certified’ professionals. It does not need much to say that such accommodation has nothing to do with psychoanalysis; it only increases the number of the analysts and gives the IPA more members who are certified to practice legally a health act.

 I have to repeat my previously declared view regarding training and the true nature of psychoanalysis to proceed without unnecessary distractions in futile arguments:

If psychoanalysis is a skill and not knowledge, training should-in principle- be restricted to the clinicians who are certified by their academic degrees to treat patient. Example: for a Ph.D. psychologist to be accepted in training in psychoanalysis his Ph. D has to be in clinical psychology and not in experimental psychology, so that after passing his apprenticeship training, he could join the psychoanalytic community. If psychoanalysis is knowledge, training therefore should be open to all the qualified candidates in the humanities, who seek the additional ‘depth’ psychoanalysis offers. Training that meaning should be geared toward the nonclinical aspects of the psychoanalytic discoveries. The term psychoanalyst (if used as an adjective) would then indicate a specialization within a profession.

Losses and Gains:

There are two main issues to address in regard to the membership of the psychoanalytic community: learning/training and the applicants. Psychoanalysis should lose the fixed image of a clinical discipline and being simply a psychotherapy, in order to gain the quality of being a knowledge that enriches other branches of knowledge (including psychotherapy too).  Thus, it would no longer qualify as an apprenticeship but becomes an academic subject. It will not be learned in institutes that are run and overseen by the “membership” organization of the IPA. The learning institution will be Academia which overlook all that is related to getting certifiable in the candidates’ choice of their domain of psychoanalytic interest. There would a real separation between the educational body and the membership body. Psychoanalysis become an integral part of several recognizable professions like medicine.

We lose the unsystematized and haphazard curricula and the subjective significance of the ‘training’ analyst.  We gain the respect of academic learning and the teaching faculty’s concern about its educational input in learning. We also gain that our contributions to psychoanalysis will be scrutinized by other academicians, therefore we open the self-imposed isolation and the gradual deterioration of psychoanalysis.

In regard to the candidates, we will get younger people who are going to spend more years in learning a profession that will give them a quality of credibility they will work hard to deserve and keep. It will weed out those who are not there for learning but only for quick training in doing something less credible than it was many years ago because of its novelty. 

The Dilemma of Learning and Becoming an Analyst:

D: Personal Analysis and its Place in Training:

Psychoanalysts are assumed to get their learning and training in institutes that are accredited by a system of hierarchical supervision, which leads to an international 'certification'. Training has three components: Seminars (theory), supervised practice, and personal analysis. The seminars are supposed to go through the classical writings of Freud and previous and contemporary leading analysts, supervision is reporting to three or four training analysts the clinical work with three or four patients to learn the technicalities of practicing the theory 'properly' in psychotherapy.  There is a third requirement for completing the training trio which is known among analysts as “personal analysis”. It is evident to any scrutinizing eye that the first two elements of training are impossible to standardize among analysts who have very different theoretical backgrounds in different parts of the world. However, remedying this flaw in the system of training is possible if psychoanalysis moves to academia as we know about the main defined professions like medicine and engineering. The problem is with the third component Personal Analysis. Most of the time and more frequently Candidates are excited about that component in particular because it used to give psychoanalytic learning and training an air of superiority (a fantasy of analysts being cured of their psychical disorders to be allowed to practice psychotherapy).  I do not know the source of that fixed phantasy, because the requirement to undergo personal analysis is basically to learn how it is done because there is no literature or other means that could show and demonstrate:

1.     How the unconscious is derived from the conscious verbal reporting of the patient,

2.    How an interpretation is formed and delivered to the patient,

3.     How construction is done to turn the interpretations- every time they are ripe- into an insight of an intrapsychical element that was formed or deformed in childhood.

Since 'personal analysis' is a requirement in the training process it became a central issue in the problems of "training analyst". The problem is best recognized in a recent question raised in the American Association. Is there a difference between personal analysis in training and psychoanalytic treatment of patients?

All the arguments in regard to maintaining the status of the training analyst were supporting the notion that analyzing a future analyst should be qualitatively better, therefore personal analysis of a candidate should be with a training analyst. Sounds logical but it is really sandwiched between two contradictions.  A. For any psychoanalysis to work as a therapeutic tool has to come from the patient’s own sense of need for it, and that it is not imposed on him for any external reasons (father, wife, boss, etc.). B. Its benefits should not be linked with any external beneficiary (father, wife, boss or the INTITUTE. 

However, even though the motive behind personal analysis is the right one there would still be a difference related to a genuine desire to train. This difference is imbedded in the process of psychoanalyzing itself. 

Free Association, Interpretation, and Construction: 

There is something about psychoanalysis we usually forget although its effect on our thinking as analyst is very evident in two things: our conception of the unconscious and the meaning and link between interpretation and construction. The roots of the discovery of the unconscious go back to the hypnotic stage in the history of psychoanalysis: the unconscious is the repressed objected to conscious material. This indelible attitude that our work is to make the unconscious conscious takes different forms in the different school but boils down to missing that the unconscious is psychical construct that exists independent of its content, It makes conscious material unconscious (through the primary processes). Unconsciously, Freuds conscious concerns about himself and his patient Irma created a dream-scene full of sarcasm and despise of people. Therefore, our work is to find the hidden meaning -in open sight- of the associations and give it to the patient to understand what he distorted and how. In other a more concise words: interpretation is to elicit the disguise meaning of the given material.

Doing that whenever possible leaves the patient at a loss (he is saying two things all the time). Freud (1937d) says: " 'Interpretation'   applies to something one does to some single element of the material, such as association or parapraxis. But  it is a 'construction' when one lays before the patient of the analysis a piece of his early history that he has forgotten …" (p.261). This new issue fits well the dialectical nature of the human subject who is always in a state of duality (Hegel). I preciously underlined the notion that we do not analysis psychical issues, material, or other psychical 'things', we analyze processes that construct those issues. A transference reaction is the result of a dialectical interchange of analyst analysand relationship[that is why the tripartite recommendation of neutralit,...is very important to adhere to it].

The difference between self-analysis and (regular) psychoanalysis:

In principle there should not be any difference. However prosonal analysis is in all likelihood is gone through with another objective in the mind of both analyst and candidate. The difference could be unnoticeable or insignificant, but we should not ignore the preconscious in that respect ( I am not factitious in raising this point. I am pointing out how much could be swept under the rug in ignoring this point.)   Both will have in the back of their minds issues pertaining to admiring, identification and future encounters in professional life and society. Putting that aside we have to consider the process itself. What could be different in interpreting and construction work.

I am speaking from the point of view of one training analyst. I used to take more time and reveal more of my mental process in reaching my remarks, I did more so when it came to constructing. It was sometimes not easy to hide the teaching aspect of my comments, but I did not notice any marked difference in the outcome of those works on the therapeutic work. However, several times in my own training one of my supervisor (of the cases of training) suggested that I take some of my clinical experiences back to my analysis. The attitude of the supervisor brought to my attention that training is not three separate activities but they are all one process in the "formation" of an analyst. with this in mind personal analysis took a different meaning that I tried to subtly convey to the candidate\future analyst.

  

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 The Dilemma of Learning and Becoming an Analyst:

 

C: The Link Between Theory and Practice!!!??

The actual reality is that there is no definitive or approved link between what we call the theory of psychoanalysis and the technique of proacting it in psychotherapy. We have a rather impressive vocabulary we gathered over the early years of discoveries in psychodynamics and we it treat it as our theory of psychoanalysis. We also have few early recommendations about practice psychotherapy but they have no link with the theory. The proof to that is absence of any serious literature on their on their merits.  The main three recommendations are regarding the relationship between the analyst and the patient: Anonymity, Neutrality, Abstinence. Those three stipulates are mentioned in the ‘theory’ without any clear explanations of their significance. I will venture and reveal my own assumptions of their importance in the practice of “psychoanalysis”, The first and basic Freudian discovery was the interlinkage between the conscious and the unconscious, which made him recommend to the patient to say whatever come to his mind without any attempt to stop himself from saying whatever. He called that free association. Therefore, the analyst should not say or do anything that could interfere with that request, positively or negatively. At the same time the patient’s associations and reactions to the analyst’s demeaner and interpretations should be considered transference material (that is if the analyst adhered to the mentioned above trio). It does not matter if the patient has access to realistic facts about the analyst as long as the analyst does not confirm their accuracy or object to their incorrectness. The point to make is that the practice of psychoanalysis has theoretical parameters and is not just statements of ‘direction’ like making the unconscious conscious.

The first point to mention in this context is that without theoretical elucidation Practice becomes void of any actual orientation. Even in the multiplicity of schools there should be a link between theory improvised new school and its practice. The well-known adage in regard to classical psychoanalysis is that it is making the unconscious conscious (making the unconscious conscious is too abstract to mean anything). The core of the classical theory is that psychopathology manifests intrapsychical distortions caused by an unhealthy relation with a parent. How do we get to those dissertations to make the proper changes in them? Following the gist of the recommended Trio the patient will be less tempted to react to the vague undefined analyst and bring back his previous dealings with the parental figures, i.e., transfer to the analyst his past psychical life. Transference is the substance of the intrapsychical.

In the history of practicing analysts gave the three stipulates recommended for proper practice various imaginary ritualistic values. Being without linkage to the theory resulted in becoming some comic rituals of comic nature. I knew a lady of the third British group who never let her patients shake hands with her or hand her the fees…put them on the desk. The reaction to those meaningless maters engendered equally comic observance and understanding of the ‘ridiculous. The point is that analysts were left with an impressive vocabulary about the psyche that seemed and gave the impression of a new theory; but without any equally impressive explication of the process of psychoanalyzing. Worse, training in two generations lost its purpose: learn a trade; it became a process of imitating the training analysts and advance to idealizing them.

I am not comfortable describing and labeling psychoanalysis in those terms, because even if there some truth-in different degrees of correctness in what I said there are many analysts and associations of psychoanalysis who were able to avoid the negative and stick to the positive. Nevertheless, warning about the inevitable deterioration of training and learning psychoanalysis has something to do with something completely different. Psychoanalysis emerged in the Western culture little more than a century ago. This is the belief of most analysts and a source of their well-known pride; if not more than just pride. This pride is the basis of another falsified belief: psychoanalysis is a profession. Since the human subject suddenly had the insight that there is more to his kind to learn about a new field of achievement was born (3000 years ago !?). Man wanted to know more and detail about himself and others. He called that the love of wisdom philosophy. In other terms philosophy is- more or less- the verbal side of knowing ourselves while the achievements in the sciences are using our knowledge to understand the world around us. Therefore, we could pose the issue pertaining psychoanalysis this way: is psychoanalysis an aspect of philosophy (knowing ourselves) is it a science using our knowledge of ourselves to understand the world around us?  !!

There is a more specific duality that concerns the practicing psychoanalyst in that regard: Hegel (philosopher) realized and recognized- in one of the most revealing thoughts- that the human mind is incapable of dealing with an issue but only with the duality of the issue: morality is the antithesis of immorality, therefore for it to be considered its opposite has to be created and envisaged. His dialectical conception of the dualities of the human mind is the dormant giant of the human creation of language. In that perspective psychoanalysis is a discovery of a cardinal human quality and is also a method to analyze psychical what seems as singular issues. P. Ricoeur marveled at Freud’s dialectical conception of his thought. In a rapid conclusive  statement: the link between theory and practice in psychoanalysis is dialectical but that is only if the theory in its own right is dialectically formulated and the technique of psychoanalyzing is similarly dialectical in its own right too.   

 

The Dilemma of Learning and Becoming an Analyst:

 

C: The Link Between Theory and Practice!!!??

The actual reality is that there is no definitive or approved link between what we call the theory of psychoanalysis and the technique of proacting it in psychotherapy. We have a rather impressive vocabulary we gathered over the early years of discoveries in psychodynamics and we it treat it as our theory of psychoanalysis. We also have few early recommendations about practice psychotherapy but they have no link with the theory. The proof to that is absence of any serious literature on their on their merits.  The main three recommendations are regarding the relationship between the analyst and the patient: Anonymity, Neutrality, Abstinence. Those three stipulates are mentioned in the ‘theory’ without any clear explanations of their significance. I will venture and reveal my own assumptions of their importance in the practice of “psychoanalysis”, The first and basic Freudian discovery was the interlinkage between the conscious and the unconscious, which made him recommend to the patient to say whatever come to his mind without any attempt to stop himself from saying whatever. He called that free association. Therefore, the analyst should not say or do anything that could interfere with that request, positively or negatively. At the same time the patient’s associations and reactions to the analyst’s demeaner and interpretations should be considered transference material (that is if the analyst adhered to the mentioned above trio). It does not matter if the patient has access to realistic facts about the analyst as long as the analyst does not confirm their accuracy or object to their incorrectness. The point to make is that the practice of psychoanalysis has theoretical parameters and is not just statements of ‘direction’ like making the unconscious conscious.

The first point to mention in this context is that without theoretical elucidation Practice becomes void of any actual orientation. Even in the multiplicity of schools there should be a link between theory improvised new school and its practice. The well-known adage in regard to classical psychoanalysis is that it is making the unconscious conscious (making the unconscious conscious is too abstract to mean anything). The core of the classical theory is that psychopathology manifests intrapsychical distortions caused by an unhealthy relation with a parent. How do we get to those dissertations to make the proper changes in them? Following the gist of the recommended Trio the patient will be less tempted to react to the vague undefined analyst and bring back his previous dealings with the parental figures, i.e., transfer to the analyst his past psychical life. Transference is the substance of the intrapsychical.

In the history of practicing analysts gave the three stipulates recommended for proper practice various imaginary ritualistic values. Being without linkage to the theory resulted in becoming some comic rituals of comic nature. I knew a lady of the third British group who never let her patients shake hands with her or hand her the fees…put them on the desk. The reaction to those meaningless maters engendered equally comic observance and understanding of the ‘ridiculous. The point is that analysts were left with an impressive vocabulary about the psyche that seemed and gave the impression of a new theory; but without any equally impressive explication of the process of psychoanalyzing. Worse, training in two generations lost its purpose: learn a trade; it became a process of imitating the training analysts and advance to idealizing them.

I am not comfortable describing and labeling psychoanalysis in those terms, because even if there some truth-in different degrees of correctness in what I said there are many analysts and associations of psychoanalysis who were able to avoid the negative and stick to the positive. Nevertheless, warning about the inevitable deterioration of training and learning psychoanalysis has something to do with something completely different. Psychoanalysis emerged in the Western culture little more than a century ago. This is the belief of most analysts and a source of their well-known pride; if not more than just pride. This pride is the basis of another falsified belief: psychoanalysis is a profession. Since the human subject suddenly had the insight that there is more to his kind to learn about a new field of achievement was born (3000 years ago !?). Man wanted to know more and detail about himself and others. He called that the love of wisdom philosophy. In other terms philosophy is- more or less- the verbal side of knowing ourselves while the achievements in the sciences are using our knowledge to understand the world around us. Therefore, we could pose the issue pertaining psychoanalysis this way: is psychoanalysis an aspect of philosophy (knowing ourselves) is it a science using our knowledge of ourselves to understand the world around us?  !!

There is a more specific duality that concerns the practicing psychoanalyst in that regard: Hegel (philosopher) realized and recognized- in one of the most revealing thoughts- that the human mind is incapable of dealing with an issue but only with the duality of the issue: morality is the antithesis of immorality, therefore for it to be considered its opposite has to be created and envisaged. His dialectical conception of the dualities of the human mind is the dormant giant of the human creation of language. In that perspective psychoanalysis is a discovery of a cardinal human quality and is also a method to analyze psychical what seems as singular issues. P. Ricoeur marveled at Freud’s dialectical conception of his thought. In a rapid conclusive  statement: the link between theory and practice in psychoanalysis is dialectical but that is only if the theory in its own right is dialectically formulated and the technique of psychoanalyzing is similarly dialectical in its own right too.   

B. A Useful Introduction:

The most irritating issue I seem to create in my postings is insisting all the time to make a distinction between psychoanalysis as a theory of the subject and as part of the western philosophical heritage, and its function as psychotherapy. I understand that irritation very well. I am a psychoanalyst who defined himself as a therapist for the first thirty years of my involvement with psychoanalytical matters (learning, practicing, teaching, and training). Its is when I started to see the deteriorating standards of all those matters in most of the places I visited in one capacity or another, and the glaring crisis of the dropping interest in psychoanalysis [admitted by the IPA in 1995] and responsible analyst looing outside analysis for the reasons of its deterioration. As an analyst I looked and still look within psychoanalytic mater for the conditions and causes of its deterioration.

Without hesitation I will introduce the post with two very brief introductions to give a background of what I still expect to be resentment my views about psychoanalysis.

1.                  Freud was exploring some psychological features in hysterical patients. He noticed the difficulties face in talking about sexual matter and then moral issues in general. He concluded that he should the let the patients free to just say what comes to their mind instead of asking questions. He called that ‘free association’. He used the term psychoanalysis to define his method of exploration. Psychoanalysis thus is a description of what Freud thought he was doing, which was listening to the patient talking about his psychological and psychopathological condition. He did that in a deliberate way instead of doing it unintentionally as we all do our daily communication. Freud’s exceptional talent was noticing that the patients say things about their condition without being conscious of what they were saying. Psychoanalysis gradually became more than just an exploration of things- unconscious, but also a method of ‘making patients get acquainted with their unconsciousness. Psychoanalysts-not Freud- wanted to systematize that process hoping to make psychoanalysing a defined, standardized, method of a therapeutic objective. The fact that neither the patient, nor the analyst, knew what was going to be said or meant to be said made the process of psychoanalysis unavailable for standardization and unmanageable in the tradition of a scientific methodology.

My argument is that psychoanalysis is not and should not be assess in terms of scientific viability. However, what is uncovered in psychoanalytic work could be studied scientifically in the related and relevant field of sciences. Discovering the lasting impressions of some childhood experience could be studied scientifically by scientists of other fields (psychometrically, child psychology, social psychology, etc.). Psychoanalysis could provide the subject matter of different scientific endeavours without having to be judged in terms of scientificity. Psychoanalysis is the knowledge we gather not the tool of gathering this knowledge. Medicine is not a science but many sciences were and still are needed to state with authority that medicine is scientific?

There is no factual need for psychoanalysis to be a science: it is enough to verify its findings scientifically to make it a credible part of human knowledge. The issue of how to give psychoanalysis the required and acceptable status of being scientifically based has to start first with identifying what of it needs scientific verification-in order to know if they are amenable to the methodology of scientific research. Take, for an example, what is involved in reaching a scientific answer to the patients’ “habits” in arriving to their sessions and leaving them. The main point I am making is that the psychoanalysts are not scientifically equipped to know the basics of even choosing the issues that could be researched scientifically. What is raised now about psychoanalysis and science is still at the stage of the wish (we wish it to be scientific) but there is no serious attempt at offering, suggesting, or even identifying what we wish to be verified scientifically. Some analysts who claim authority (Training Analysts) do not have even an agreed upon clear distinction between what they call theory and what they call practice to create the scientific aspect of psychoanalysis.

However, knowing the basic evolution of the theory of psychoanalysis [psychodynamics- object relation to ego psychology-the schools- the theoretical ciaos- separate theory and practice to finally doing away with theory(ies) and making the practice of psychotherapy a scientific issue], is essential in making sense of our serious stand now: letting analysis die or try to reincarnate it in a different form. 

 

The Dilemma of Learning and Becoming an Analyst:

 

A. A basic problem:

There is a basic and elementary problem with psychoanalysis, that is only if psychoanalysts accept the obvious contradiction in their formation: there is a body of knowledge that is basic in the making and formation of the psychoanalyst, and there is another body of knowledge that is essential in the making of a therapist out of the psychoanalyst. The dilemma is that those two types of knowledges are not related in a natural way. There is no theoretical discussion in the Freudian text about the link between practice and the theory, nor dedicated works by the classical psychoanalysts about that link, nor the contributors to the classical theory from outside the analytic community. We have no notion -for instance-of the links between the material conditions of psychoanalysing, the practicing procedures of interpretation and construction. This loose situation in training is always an issue in supervision of candidate seeing patients for analytic work.   

Sometimes attaining those links becomes a difficult contradiction to deal with. Before explaining what I mean by that I remind the analyst who find my statement strange and negatively provocative that they make an issue of the link between theory and practice, so what I say is just stating the common concern in psychoanalysis as an issue that is part of the crises of the training analysts. Analysts are not settled yet on what is the theory of psychoanalysis and what is there of that theory that is essential for practicing it as psychotherapy. Since most analysts still do not want to realize or to acknowledge that they came to psychoanalysis from the back door of psychotherapy without enough knowledge of what that knowledge entails they confuse the practice of psychotherapy with psychoanalysis. Surgery is not medicine but medicine includes surgery.

This kind of obvious limited understanding of psychoanalysis led -eventually- to asking if psychoanalysis is a science or epistemology? The answer that came from the psychotherapist was that psychoanalysis is a science, while the answers that came from the thinkers of all kind was that psychoanalysis is a theory of the human subject and not essentially a psychotherapy. The reason- in my opinion- is the narcissism of the practicing analyst (his image in his own mind and not if he is sick or psychologically healthy). Protecting analysts see themselves as professional of an exceptional importance, therefore they like to believe that psychoanalysis is a science. Instead of curt remark here I prefer to ask: who is more scientific about the nature of the human psyche...... Eysenck or Bion?  

The issues that pertain to learning psychoanalysis and practicing are not as simple as they look in the apprenticeship institutes of psychoanalysis. Knowledge never ceases to advances and improves. The stubborn hanging on to the parochial IPA system of apprenticeship in specialized institutes is like insisting on learning medicine from the village's surgeon.