Dear Candidate: Analysts from around the World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and the Profession

Fred Busch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367617622
• eBook ISBN: 9781000224535
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In this first-of-kind book, senior psychoanalysts from around the world offer personal reflections on their own training, what it was like to become a psychoanalyst, and what they would like most to convey to the candidate of today.

With forty-two personal letters to candidates, this edited collection helps analysts in training and those recently entering the profession to reflect upon what it means to be a psychoanalytic candidate and enter the profession. Letters tackle the anxieties, ambiguities, complications, and pleasures faced in these tasks. From these reflections, the book serves as a guide through this highly personal, complex, and meaningful experience and helps readers consider the many different meanings of being a candidate in a psychanalytic institute.

Perfect for candidates and psychoanalytic educators, this book inspires analysts at all levels to think, once again, about this impossible but fascinating profession and to consider their own psychoanalytic development.

1 Arthur Leonoff

Ottawa, Canada

Dear Candidate,

It is an honor to share this moment of retrospection on my psychoanalytic training. This task provides a valuable nudge in the direction of après coup, re-imagining the past or at least how I might experience this past, in expectation of what comes next. Indeed, there is always a “next.” I use the word “imagining,” to highlight the creative and dynamic aspect of remembering. What I remember seems alive with the present. Much as metaphor captures the known to anticipate the unknown, the past opens doors to what is the current challenge.

In any case, my recall is a distillate of what I experienced during my Institute years, as compared to anything empirical or encyclopedic. As I share this with you, it will do “double duty,” communicating something of what constituted psychoanalytic formation in my case and, secondly, what this means to me now in terms of identity and even ambition. Perhaps this might help you imagine your own unfolding career.

As much as I have felt the need at various points to reflect on my analytic training, to revisit its valuable teachings, I have also had to work through experiences of disillusionment. There is always something to mourn, a loss of innocence, a family dysfunction that threatens to undermine what is most precious. This could describe psychoanalytic training, but it also depicts life as it is lived – the precious and profane less in combative tension than having to work out an inevitable compromise.

I entered psychoanalytic training as a 38-year-old psychologist who had begun reading Freud in my undergraduate years but found real, exciting application in the analytically inspired works of David Rappaport and Roy Shafer on metapsychology and projective testing. When I trained as a psychologist at a psychiatric hospital, I was amazed that clinical case conferences would be postponed if I had not yet completed the dynamic formulation the clinical team was eager to hear and on which they depended. Understanding the patient as a person was never something to be taken for granted, I learned. It whetted my appetite.

It would never have been enough for me simply to enjoy the intellectual pursuit of psychoanalysis. It had to make me a better clinician with wider scope and expertise. This is why I applied to become a psychoanalyst.

It was unclear to me then, and likely even now, what would be the fate of my identity as a psychologist, even if professional psychology was the gateway and legal structure in which I could practice and earn a living. In the end, it has been an ambivalent relation, more necessity than choice. I would have given it up entirely if I could. Psychoanalysis has been my métier, perspective, and working identity. My colleagues and friends include the psychoanalysts that I have met worldwide. What were breaches to this foundation, the disappointments encountered along the way, were assuaged by the caring, thoughtful colleagues that populate our profession wherever in the world they practice. These can be your mainstay when the winds of disillusionment blow, as they inevitably will. Look beyond your own locale.

Thus, psychoanalysis was less the identity that formed in my case than a re-finding of something that already inherently defined me. The training was presented by the Institute at the very moment that I imagined it through my own aspirations and self-expression. In this regard, psychoanalysis has always served as a subjective object that is both me and not-me. It is very personal, which makes it special.

If becoming an analyst is a transformative process, as it would seem to be, then the Institute as well as the candidate must play its part. This has to do with the centripetal action of analytic training that creates the ferment from which psychoanalytic identity can evolve. Although rarely discussed, the makeup of the class is important. I joined a class of ten. My fellow candidates were bright, creative, and accomplished in their own right. It was exciting and dynamic and, for me personally, a relief. The Institute proved to be precisely the fertile ground that I was seeking.

In reminiscence, when I revisit the curriculum and those analysts who taught us, it reinforces how much their devotion to psychoanalytic teaching amplified their very real contributions. Teachers travelled from near and far to supplement the heavy load born by local faculty at my small Institute. Robert Langs and the controversial Freud scholar, Peter Swales, came from New York. We had students of Kohut to teach us Self-Psychology, a British trained child analyst for a year-long exposure to infant observation, and a historian of medicine to introduce us to the Viennese and French origins that gave rise to psychoanalysis itself. In retrospect, all of this mattered. It was the education that I had always wanted, and I treasured it then as now. It was both foundational and aspirational, which covers a lot of ground.

Psychoanalysis enters through the intellectual and emotional pores where it mixes with other influences to create a unique amalgam. I had begun a personal analysis four years before entering the Institute and continued during the next four years of training. What remained unsolved from the first analysis was remedied in a second treatment of three years. If I had not done the second treatment, I might have had difficulty believing in analysis. I needed it to work for me where it most counted. My impression is that analytic careers must be built on a foundation of a solid personal analysis. As such, it should be good and not simply good enough. There is simply too much riding on it.

Disillusionments have been harder to work through, but there is important benefit to this work. It is part of wisdom. The inspiration behind the Institute was a disruptive chairman of the university’s psychiatry department, who, in his munificence, imported talent from all over the analytic world, only to alienate many in hostile disputes fairly quickly. The fact that this analyst was the “father” of the Institute was troublesome at best. He had almost nothing to do with my training directly, but his presence was disconcerting, a source of splitting and rancor that roiled under the surface for years and impacted on the Institute. The Training Analysts who were instrumental in implementing the training had to make some sort of peace with him, which placed them inevitably on his side in the fragmenting conflicts that undermined the cohesion of the small analytic community.

Notwithstanding the turbulence that swirled around our training, there was a protective bubble that allowed the class to learn together relatively unimpeded. There was even a formal complaint to the International Psychoanalytic Association (I.P.A.) that was investigated and found to be without merit. The truth was that we were receiving an excellent psychoanalytic education no matter how faulty the container was. This was due to the high quality of the teaching, careful management by the Training Committee, and the quality of the candidates.

The second source of disillusionment, and one that will now somewhat contradict what I said above, was the revelation that none other than the Director of the Institute had been having sex with a disadvantaged young woman he saw as a patient. For the candidates for whom he was their personal analyst, not me, this must have been a disaster. He supervised my first case, however, and, I must admit, I learned a great deal from him. He also personally attended every seminar over the four years, a practice that I have never seen duplicated. My recollection is that this sullying disaster came to the surface after the seminars were completed. I felt terrible for the patient and the confusion and pain she must have experienced.

It would be ameliorative if I could say that the entire local analytic community and what remained of the Training Committee rallied around the besieged candidates. Sadly, this did not occur. There was only a deafening silence and a sealing over that occurred almost immediately. This included a foreclosure on his name and, to some extent, his existence. As I reflect on this handling of the situation, I realize that this had much to do with helplessness and shutting off of the destructiveness that was unleashed. It amounted to a profound attack on his profession; his wish to smash it to pieces and escape whatever prison in which he perceived himself living. It was less a lesson in the potential destructiveness of sexuality than in how destructiveness can use sexuality to vent its nihilistic fury.

These assaults on patients, colleagues, the Society and Institute, and ultimately, psychoanalysis itself, are particularly hard on candidates. The destructivity ricochets through the ranks and threatens to poison the well from which candidates are eagerly drinking. Yet, and this might surprise, what affected me most was the passivity of my own Institute. The unmistakable message was that personal analysis is the all-purpose tool for dealing with any adversity. In other words, talk about it with your analyst. This missed the point entirely. It was a self-protective and defensive response that was inadequate. If anything, however, it propelled me to be more activist in my life and career. Although psychoanalysts are not a school of fish swimming in collective rhythm, our ethics of responsibility have to go beyond the consulting room. I think that this has spurred my extensive and meaningful involvement in the IPA, to which I am hugely grateful.

Thus, this adverse event did not destroy the “good” or deprive me of the opportunity to be an analyst. There is something about the élan vital of psychoanalysis, the intellectual fervor and clinical aspiration to help people, that it creates its own exciting and forward-facing momentum. It was not the case of time healing as much as investing in a psychoanalytic way of working and thinking that was preservative and fostering even in the midst of disillusionment. This has only deepened and widened with experience, teaching, and study.

Psychoanalysis can certainly be nostalgic, but if it delves into the past, it does so with a temporality that bridges past, present, and future. I cannot say that what this errant mentor did was unthinkable. In fact, it was the opposite—too thinkable, which is what made it particularly scary. It was a story that has dogged psychoanalysis from its outset, although often disavowed as the perverse idiosyncrasy of a few. If this incident was a further expression of a collective trauma, the thinkable sliding too easily into the doable, then the risk to identity is a type of defensive nostalgia, idealizing and laundering a past that perhaps never was. Psychoanalysis has its external detractors for sure, but its real enemies have been from within its own membership. This was not something I was prepared to know at the time but could be summarized as: “psychoanalysis can never escape the human condition of which it can only be a reflection.”

I am thankful that I had a very good father in my life. We were close friends until his death when I was 60 and he was 92 years of age. If I am nostalgic, it is for this man and this lived childhood experience. It would never be Freud or his namesake, the deviant Director of Training. Moreover, the “good” was firmly represented in my working and learning ego, and even this toppling disillusionment did not destroy a foundation that had begun forming even before I entered the Institute.

Further. I will never have the space in my life or time to address or mourn all the disillusionments accumulated along the way, including the times I have failed to live up to my own standards and expectations. In the end, I chose to embrace psychoanalysis with all its frailties as a very human enterprise that does far more good in the world than bad. One can certainly go down the rabbit hole of collective trauma, which is deep and cross-generational, but there is also a collective dream, and this is extremely vibrant and resilient. There is a vein of destructiveness in every aspect of human life. Psychoanalysis does not get a pass.

I understand better now why analysts work well into their old age and sometimes through it. There is certainly often a monetary issue, we are “piece workers” limited by hours in the day and energy, but this is not the main reason. There is the excitement in being an analyst—the capacity to help people deeply, to inch them towards deeper change, to learn what has been previously unknowable, all the while further refining one’s analytic capacity that continues to grow. It is hard for me to imagine giving this up as long as there are patients willing and eager to work with me and profit from what we as a group of committed clinicians have to offer.

I remember as a young analyst being at a conference, the annual meeting of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. The late Dr. Henry Kravitz, a senior Montreal Training Analyst and one of my supervisors, was discussing a case. He had asked the presenter to pause after hearing the beginning of the presentation, which he was hearing for the first time. What followed was an amazing unpackaging of the dynamics, an eloquent clinical portrayal offered as a series of hypotheses. When the presenter continued, it was clearly evident to the audience that what Dr. Kravitz predicted was totally confirmed by the clinical material that followed. I thought at the time—“I want to be able to do that one day.”

2 Michael Diamond

Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Dear Candidate,

I wish to share some musings that might help you get the most out of your psychoanalytic training. Memories from my own candidacy in progressing from being a psychotherapist to becoming a psychoanalyst, as well as continuing experiences as an analyst, teacher, supervisor, writer, and active member of a vibrant analytic community play a major role in shaping my contribution to this unique and broadly needed book.

Now that you’ve opened yourself to a completely unique way of life as a psychoanalyst, it helps to remember that being an analyst not only commands hard work and considerable responsibility, it also embodies perhaps the most personal of careers—namely, a livelihood that Freud regarded as an “impossible” profession that seemed to be marked by “unsatisfying results” (given its unrealizable ideals). Moreover, as a candidate, the temporal, financial, and personal/familial demands are extensive, and subsequently, patience—with oneself, one’s patients, and the analytic learning process—is everything! I hope to clarify how the challenges of candidacy will set the course for a uniquely rich and lifelong, albeit often tension-filled journey that will change your life’s direction while providing enormous opportunities for steady learning and personal growth. You may be surprised to discover when traveling in the domain of the psyche that there might be major changes to the kinds of relationships you have and perhaps the kinds of people you choose to spend time with. For many reasons, then, the role of your personal psychoanalysis—in addition to your readings, course work, and supervised clinical experience—becomes pivotal in navigating the pathways ahead.

Because candidacy itself accesses conflicts and unexpected regressions, the choice of a personal psychoanalyst becomes vital. So, it is wise to interview several potential analysts before choosing one you can trust with your most primitive parts—one who, as one candidate noted, “can hold your crazy.” Still, given the inherent limitations of training analyses, you may even wish to undertake a second, post-training analysis (often with an analyst not connected to your training institute).

What begins in candidacy will hopefully grow into a career-long project to develop your capacity to work with unconscious material and appreciate the life of the psyche. Yet, this will invariably test your ability to tolerate uncertainty, confusion, insecurity, and intense feelings, often in ways that entail considerable vulnerability. Additionally, particularly through helpful supervisory experiences and your personal analysis, you must reckon with your ability to tolerate disappointment, responsibility, and manage narcissistic investment in your work, often in great inner solitude. Despite the intimacy within analytic space, we are unutterably alone in the deepest and most important aspects of our work. Your solitude as an analyst must become an anchor where you can eventually find your way, often amid turbulent and unfamiliar conditions that candidacy can help you learn to accept and even bear with curiosity.

Freud made it very clear (in his An Outline of Psychoanalysis, published posthumously in 1940) that his life’s work in addressing the “psyche” had been devoted to understanding as fully as possible the world of man’s soul. He was convinced that, despite the language of metapsychology, the soul must be thought of (and I would add, related to) in order to comprehend his system. Because you might often feel besieged with complex psychoanalytic terms and concepts as well as experiential overload, it helps to consider that clinical work fundamentally involves the soul, which in line with Freud’s thinking (emerging from John Stuart Mill’s perspective) entails “that which feels.”

From this nexus of soulful, experientially alive analytic work, psychoanalysis requires attempting to make contact with what might be occurring in the patient’s largely unconscious inner world to provide what has been referred to as “the experience of being understood.” This stands in contrast to getting understanding through the analyst’s theoretically based, clever, yet inert interpretive activity removed from meaningful emotional engagement. It demands far more than simply attempting to make patients feel better or rid them of unwanted feelings, symptoms, or parts of the self. In short, there’s no escaping the personal nature of successful psychoanalytic work that brings about psychological development through direct emotional contact by creating a new way of relating both to one’s own and our patient’s mind.

As a more seasoned and hardier guide and explorer of psychic life, the analyst’s humanity, integrity, compassion, and courageous commitment to understanding unconscious mental functioning brings psychoanalysis to life. As you find your way as a candidate, the focus must be on becoming immersed in listening to the patient rather than listening for confirmation of theoretical ideas or appeasing one’s supervisor or teacher. This is easier said than done and is particularly challenging given the evaluative aspects of candidacy. Persistence and faith in one’s development is necessary despite experiencing frequent moments of “not knowing,” of endless repetition, repeated disappointments, perturbing limitations, and intense countertransference experiences. Shame—both among candidates and even among the most experienced of analysts—often occurs when exposing our work and limitations to colleagues and supervisors. Nonetheless, know that a certain level of courage, stamina, discipline, and persistent determination, as well as an eventual, well-earned faith in psychoana...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Original Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction by Fred Busch (U.S.A.)
• 1 Arthur Leonoff (Canada)
• 2 Michael Diamond (U.S.A.)
• 3 Roosevelt Cassorla (Brazil)
• 4 Eric Marcus (U.S.A.)
• 5 Cláudio Laks Eizirik (Brazil)
• 6 Theodore Jacobs (U.S.A.)
• 7 Paola Marion (Italy)
• 8 Otto F. Kernberg (U.S.A.)
• 9 Stefano Bolognini (Italy)
• 10 Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau (U.S.A.)
• 11 Abel Mario Fainstein (Argentina)
• 12 Jay Greenberg (U.S.A.)
• 13 Heribert Blass, (Germany)
• 14 Elias and Elizabeth da Rocha Barros (Brazil)
• 15 Daniel Jacobs (U.S.A.)
• 16 Eike Hinze (Germany)
• 17 Alan Sugarman (U.S.A.)
• 18 Paola Golinelli (Italy)
• 19 Allannah Furlong (Canada)
• 20 Barbara Stimmel (U.S.A.)
• 21 Abbot Bronstein (U.S.A.)
• 22 Cecilio Paniagua (Spain)
• 23 Ellen Sparer (France)
• 24 Harriet Wolfe (U.S.A.)
• 25 Maj-Britt Winberg (Sweden)
• 26 Arlene Kramer Richardson (U.S.A.)
• 27 Gohar Homayounpour (Iran)
• 28 Ines Bayona (Colombia)
• 29 Donald Moss (U.S.A.)
• 30 Virginia Ungar (Argentina)
• 31 Arnold Richards (U.S.A.)
• 32 Ellen Pinsky (U.S.A.)
• 33 H. Shmuel Erlich (Israel)
• 34 Bent Rosenbaum (Denmark)
• 35 Fredric Perlman (U.S.A.)
• 36 Claudia Lucia Borensztejn (Argentina)
• 37 Jane Kite (U.S.A.)
• 38 Gabriela Goldstein (Argentina)
• 39 Eva Schmid-Gloor (Switzerland)
• 40 Adriana Prengler (U.S.A.)
• 41 Rachel Blass (Israel)
• 42 Donald Campbell (England)
• 43 P.S. (Fred Busch)
• References
• Index