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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