Hopes and fears in a sample of trainees: Considerations and perspectives

Abstract

This paper investigates hopes and fears connected with work as an analytic psychotherapist, in a sample of trainees attending the Italian Training School for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (SPP). Candidates were asked to complete a questionnaire with open-ended questions. In the first analysis, we found trainees to be interested in learning an effective therapeutic method to treat patients. Their wish was for a serious, demanding, but nonjudgmental training, which could support the development of both a thoughtful way of using their thinking process and a rigorous clinical method, while respecting their individuality and personality. We asked our candidates whether theoretical concepts and issues related to the analytic method effectively helped them transform difficulties in perspectives. Theoretical tendencies and authors considered to be useful in modern clinical areas such as Internet addiction disorders, Hikikomori (severe social and relational retirement in adolescence), children's school problems, and problems connected with dimensions of parenthood (e.g. LGBT parenting) were explored. A sense of inadequacy when first dealing with difficult clinical situations, and fears about the realistic difficulties of psychotherapy as a trade, today, in Italy, were found. Considerations on the psychoanalytic educational program and on the importance of workgroups were proposed.

Key words:

• psychoanalytic training
• trainees
• workgroup
• supervision

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge all the trainees of the Italian Training School for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (SPP), in both its adult and infant, child and adolescent branches. We could not carry out our work without their active and motivated collaboration. They have understood the meaning and purpose of the research proposed by the authors and have contributed by answering the questionnaire in a thoughtful, precise, and punctual way.

Very heartfelt thanks also goes to Dr. Katiusha Hall for her care and for the attention paid to the English translation of the text, and for her ability to integrate linguistic competence with a specific sensitivity to the expression of concepts and reflections related to the psychoanalytic culture and psychotherapy training.

Notes

1 For an overview of the formal analytic training that we take into consideration, see, for example, Gabbard and Ogden (2009).

2 For further information on child and adolescent psychotherapy techniques, see Sala and Albertini (2013).

3 The word “sane” is used with the meaning of “healthy and responsible,” as found in Erich Fromm’s book The sane society.

4 We believe that the candidates have constructively criticized the SPP training, making proposals about topics that could be studied in depth during training, such as the treatment of pathologies related to migration, the need for a continuous training that is responsive and close to their professional needs, and so on.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Egidia Albertini

Egidia Albertini, MD, psychiatrist, has been a member of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies since 1998. She is scientific secretary and supervisor of the Scuola di Psicoterapia Psicoanalitica (SPP), and the author of articles on psychoanalysis and psychopathology. She is also the co-author of Psicoterapia psicoanalitica dell'età evolutiva. Clinica e formazione (Psychoanalytic psychotherapy of childhood and adolescence developmental period. Clinical and training aspects) (Mimesis, 2013).

Marcello Panero

Marcello Panero, MD, psychiatrist, has been a member of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies since 1993. He is past-president of the Associazione di Studi Psicoanalitici (ASP) and is currently president of and supervisor in the Scuola di Psicoterapia Psicoanalitica (SPP). He has been member of the editorial board of the Associazione di Studi Psicoanalitici (ASP) journal Setting, in which he has published many articles.