Revisiting the Call for Psychoanalysis in Academia.

The call for moving psychoanalysis to Academia  was a major basic divergence from the proper well-established tradition of the psychoanalytic movement, and its IPA system of ‘training institutes’. The call to end the system of apprenticeship in training, as I called iy in  June 2020 was met with a great deal of rejection and belittling, although I justified and supported it with logical discussions that were not responded to.

In the latest part of nineteenth century psychoanalysis was new a point of view regarding the human subject -therefore it was natural that it would be stated through a system of apprenticeship. Apprenticeship was the way to train young people in trades in the Middle Ages. The creation of ‘institutes’ to be the place where transmitting knowledge and experience of the forefathers of psychotherapy to a new generation, was the logical thing to do with psychoanalysis, only at the beginning. But when we come to the twenty first century we should know better: there is a great volume of knowledge and modifications, which transmitting it from generation to generation necessitated changing the system of qualifying the professional practitioners. The IPA did not pay attention to a subtle point. Psychoanalysis was not going to stop at improving itself as psychotherapy; it was destined to become more than psychotherapy. Yet, the issue at hand in that regard was not whether psychoanalysis is psychotherapy or much more. Whatever psychoanalysis was it was also a knowledge that has to be ‘acquired’ from experienced professors who are knowledgeable in the field and are also knowledgeable in related fields. All the attacks on the notions of adding to or replacing the traditional system of the institutes came from training well-established analysts who did not want to lose their distinctions to none analyst or none training analysts. Denying the impact of such change on the community of psychoanalysis had a direct impact on assessing the sustainability of the suggestion to remove training out of the apprentice model and moving it to the system of academic education.

My point of view:

My suggestion was to move training in psychoanalysis to academia for two reasons: academic thinking would introduce to psychoanalysis different and new aspects that would change it from merely a transmittable knowledge from generation to generation to become a knowledge that exits independently of a certain generation and remain available independently of some aspiring psychotherapists. Psychoanalysis should not remain an ownership of individuals but should be component of knowledge, i.e. a heritage. The second reason is keeping psychoanalysis as merely a transmittable experience would- sooner or later- lead to its deterioration (which is proven to be a correct prediction by what happened to it in its IPA isolation). Few supporters of the change in the USA were becoming cognizant of the serious efforts in Western Europe to add psychoanalysis to its curricula as  an academic item. This made them  more agreeable to consider the matter. The issue at this juncture is the relationship between the IPA with its training program and institutes and the different universities that offer training in psychoanalysis. Failing in writing something reasonable about that subject convinced me to ignore its complexities and just give my opinion without background support.

I think we are at a point now that is ‘at least’ suggesting making training and education in psychoanalysis an academic task. Thus, the IPA institutes should be phased out gradually, and the academic facilities to take over the job of maintaining and developing psychoanalysis. We are few decades behind in doing that but the resistance of the training analyst is waiting time.

However,

It was natural that introducing psychoanalysis to academia started in a shy mode. As much as my capability allowed me to know, this change in attitude had some basic flaws. In Western Europe the sensitivities regarding competing with the function of the IPA institutes was noticeable. The academic psychoanalysts  avoided making an academic degree equivalent to becoming a certifiable psychoanalyst. Those attempts proclaimed that the objective of academic psychoanalysis was to learn it but practicing it is the domain to the IPA system. The same was the case in the USA universities. After few decades of resistance there seem to  be a trend to create academic psychoanalysis that matches the IPA model. This is almost as giving IPA psychoanalysis a university address. However, in very hesitant and cautious  ways the universities acknowledged the existence of psychoanalysis as knowledge and not just a practice without the backing of psychoanalytic knowledge. Despite all that we still face a reluctance to ‘fully’ accepting psychoanalysis in academia.

The IPA is not an educational body. It was at the beginning when it was only an association of fellows of similar interests. Its institutes were an additional service to its members. That service, with time and domination of the training members, became Something Else.

Psychoanalysts, or the psychoanalyst who manage the old link between training in psychoanalysis and getting officially recognized as a psychoanalyst are losing the old powerful right acquired from the authority and status of the IPA. In simple and hesitant way, it could be said the IPA will soon be merely an association of differently and poorly trained psychoanalyst.  Few years ago there was a quasi-silent complaining of the status of  the “Training Analyst”. That complaining was  leading to nothing because the cause of creating that fictitious was the apprentice mode of training.  The problem and the cause  was not the status of training analyst but is apprenticeship as training: if knowledge is only available for ‘transmission’, then the training analyst is the ‘transmitter’. But if knowledge is to be ‘acquired’ then professors should be the source and the teachers. In the academic world there are Levels of Competence based on excellence and competence not on age and connections.

Psychoanalysts should not remain isolated in an antiquated system of learning, training, affiliations and ‘the mystique’ of psychoanalysis. If the IPA is so dear to us we dn not have to reinvented, just make it a professional association.