Psychoanalytic Training Today

Abstract

Psychoanalytic education in the United States faces multiple challenges as we enter the last decade of this century. (1) Changing interest and career path patterns for psychiatrists have resulted in fewer medical applications for psychoanalytic training. (2) Increased opportunities for full psychoanalytic training of nonphysicians have resulted in increased applications from highly skilled clinicians who often have more clinical experience than their medical colleagues. (3) Increased enrollment of women candidates has required rethinking of progression requirements, in light of their combined careers as professionals and mothers. (4) Independent institutes not accredited by the American Psychoanalytic Association compete for applicants while maintaining training standards that require less time and immersion in psychoanalytic theory and practice. (5) Economic factors increasingly influence the desirability of prolonged psychoanalytic training and the availability of suitable analysands for control analyses. (6) Evolution of theory and practice and the emergence of "new schools" of psychoanalytic thought have rendered the previous psychoanalytic landscape dominated by drive theory and ego psychology more multifaceted and less uniform. The American Psychoanalytic Association and its institutes attempt to understand these changing patterns and take them into consideration in the design and implementation of psychoanalytic training programs. Only one aspect of this complex situation will be described in this work, the current state of psychoanalytic training in the 28 institutes accredited by the American Psychoanalytic Association. Although the data available at this time leave unanswered many important questions about the philosophies that organize the content and emphases of the curriculum in different institutes, much has been learned about the overall structure of psychoanalytic training programs.

A reassessment of psychoanalytic education: Controversies and changes

“…With regard to the former, allowing students to take and to teach whatever courses they want in a system with no centralized curriculum planning may actually leave them more vulnerable to the authoritarianism of charismatic teachers who are not subject to the challenges and questions of faculty peers. In his paper 'Psychoanalytic training today', Morris (1992) described the process of centralization in curriculum planning as having emerged in psychoanalytic education during the second half of the twentieth century as a counterpoint to the earlier decentralized apprenticeship model which favored the in uence of a few powerful senior analysts who, over time, came to 'own' certain courses or subjects. Institutionalized structures for curriculum planning that allow for ongoing self-examination and intelligent updating should have both 'enough power in the center to ensure some measure of coherence and integration and enough power in the periphery to insure the development of new ideas and multiple points of view' (Auchincloss, 1996b, pp.…”

Candidate progression in analytic institutes: A multi-center study

“…Although the course of study at psychoanalytic institutes is tripartite, consisting of the training analysis, didactic courses and supervised cases, the candidate's progression through the institute is not equally contingent upon progress in each of these three areas. As of 1992, only two of 28 institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA) solicited input from the training analysis about progression (Morris, 1992). In terms of the other two components of the psychoanalytic course of study, the APsA's Standards for Training in Psychoanalysis offers only the following vague recommendations regarding progression:…”

“…Many psychoanalytic educators are cognizant that vagueness about criteria for progression induces paranoia and passivity in candidates (Morris, 1992;Kernberg, 1996Kernberg, , 2000. Moreover, if the supervisor determines whether a case receives credit, often based on the supervisor's individual de nition of analytic process, candidates may be afraid to express divergent viewpoints (Astor, 1991;Gediman, 1986;Shane & Shane, 1995).…”

Subservient analysis

“…Auchincloss and Michels (2003) quote an article byMorris (1992) which describes similar concerns and initiatives occurring in the second half of the twentieth century, which had as their origin the reaction to a possible exacerbated individualism of analysts who considered themselves masters of certain subjects.…”