2. A Different Way of Saying the Same Thing

 

C. Training to Practice of Psychoanalysis:

 

The second arm of the formation of  psychoanalysts is ‘training to practice’. This aspect of preparing the new commers to the profession is concentrated in two activities: personal analysis (get analysed) and supervision (get the know[aF1]  how to conduct a psychoanalytic treatment of patients from three ‘training analysts’). Personal analysis is supposed to be ‘experiencing’ the process, or as Freud said it in 1910: “…. and ‘derive’ from it the essence of doing psychoanalysis”(SE, Vol XI). Sadly, this part of training lost its didactic meaning and gradually acquired a therapeutic  meaning. This is sad because we know that analysis as therapy does not work if it is not meant from the beginning to be just for therapy. Therefore, personal analysis is a distorted item in the preparation of the candidates. It is -in fact- detrimental to the process of training if it remains as a therapeutic necessity.

 This change had two very detrimental consequences: The candidate does not pay attention to the process, but very subtly creates another objective to replaces the original one(training). The training analyst takes the attitude of a therapist and the original purpose, thus, distorts the  transference and counter\transference. It is a glaring cause of the  psychodynamics of relationships in psychoanalytic societies. Moreover, personal analysis as part of training becomes another source of good patients for the training analysts; not only this does not serve its basic function, but it also distorts the purpose of becoming a training analyst. This aspect of training was the logical way to do training in the early years of psychoanalysis (Eitington modality)but now and maybe in the last seven- or eight-decades training should have taken a different direction. Personal analysis has to be redefined, or recommended as  therapeutic case by case, or be required a suitable period before engaging in a training program.

When we come to the second aspect of training, i.e., supervision, we have to consider that aspect the most basic and fundamental in the whole process of the formation of the analyst. Most the colleagues I trained with and the candidates I supervised had a strong conviction that psychoanalysis (as a process of therapy) has very limited rules, compared to the spontaneity and the analyst’s’ intuitions, and his ‘free floating attention’. I believe that conception, first of all is wrong. There are rules to listening, discerning the unconscious in the rhetoric, interpreting it, or waiting longer before doing that, etc. Because those aspect of training are important the training analyst should know how to explain them to the candidate, so he would practice something that has a theoretical base (the gap mentioned above). What is meant by that is to explain to the candidate-from the material the patient has delivered- what was unconscious in the conscious rhetoric.

Freud’s Tripartite Recommendations:

I believe and advocates the notion that Freud was intuitive about the very basic and cardinal in psychoanalysis but did not articulate his intuitions properly and many time he did exactly the opposite of his recommendation. The reason- I think- is the analyst’s intolerance of putting his identity on hold to maintain neutrality. If psychoanalysis is a unique way of psychotherapy, it is because of Freud’s tripartite recommendations for practice and the analysis of transference, or the transferiantial elements in the relationship with himself.

Freud’s paper on Wild Psychoanalysis  came two years before his three recommendations or the tripartite rules of practice [I believe that Freud’s poor clinical record is due to not adhering to  his own recommendations). His intuition about psychoanalysing made him recommend: Abstinence, Anonymity, and Neutrality. From the patient side he should create his own ideas, phantasies, collect whatever fact he could get or like to get. From the analyst side he should refrain from denying or confirming to the patient any of those notions he built. As for the analyst his unconfirmed or undenied personal qualities- given to him  by the patient- widen the field of the patient’s transference. Two decades ago, there was major attacks on this protocol, especially in Western US Psychoanalysts. The fallacy of the  reasons given shows in analysts extending those violations of the rules of psychoanalysis-unnecessarily-by sharing with patients their own personal thoughts and feelings. The issue with Freud’s recommendations is the need for good personal analysis and understanding of the process of treatment.

The basic ‘idea’ in psychoanalyzing-therapeutic or didactic- is to limit the factual and encourage the personal and transferiantial. So, the natural thing is to explain to the Candidate the logic of the tripartite recommendation and the notion of wild analysis issue. Conducting analysis that way is didactic in itself, whether in training or just ordinary practice. In training the candidate will make the distinction between therapy and learning about the way material gets it wider meaning by interpretation. A training analyst is not a better psychoanalyst but a psychoanalyst who KNOWS how to link interpretations to free association without being obvious in this didactic work. The candidate is not better than a patient in analysis. However, he has the advantage and the duty to learn how the unconscious keeps forming and changing with its interpretation. This knowledge is what to keep in mind all the time while practicing.

 

The Core Meaning of Training in Psychoanalysis:

Freud said clearly: “It is not enough, therefore, for the physician to know a few of the findings of psycho-analysis; he must also have familiarized himself with its technique if he wishes his medical procedure be guided by a psycho-analytic point of view. This technique cannot yet be learned from books, and certainly cannot be discovered independently without great sacrifices of time, about, and success.”(1910, S.D., Vol. XI, p.226). In a nutshell,  the analytic situation is a patient who knows what he suffers from but does not understand the factors that causes that condition. On the other hand, the analyst knows something about the causation of the complaint but does not know the conditions that led to that complaint. Analytic work is to make and engender knowledge to help the other person in that due understand. Therefore, training in psychoanalysis is to learn how and what is involved in this mutual effort to know what seems to one very baffling while for the other (the analyst it is a slow process building up that knowledge. Training in psychoanalysis is to learn how to mange ‘the unconscious ‘knowledge’ of the patient.

This point is related to the meaning of the unconscious knowledge and how the candidate learn to hear it within the conscious rhetoric.

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