Among other texts, we publish in the present issue a discussion on psychoanalytic training. In particular, the discussion addresses questions concerning training analyst institution. Björn Sahlberg from the Swedish Psychoanalytic Association has written the target essay, and an analyst from each Nordic psychoanalytic society comments the essay.
In his essay, Sahlberg describes the French training model in which, unlike in the classical Eitingon model, there is no particular training analyst status, nor a training institute. He also presents a number of arguments in favour of the French model. Unlike in other Nordic Societies, in Sweden, at times heated debate on the very issue has been going on during recent years. The positions of the commentators vary considerably and interestingly, conveying notable differences between the Nordic Societies.
In Sweden, the discussions concerning psychoanalytic training have some history. Two decades ago Jürgen Reeder, an eminent Swedish analyst, published the book Love and Hate in Psychoanalytic Institutions. The Dilemma of a Profession. (The Other Press 2004; originally Kärlek och hat i psykoanalytiska institutioner, Symposion 2001) It is a thorough and sharply critical discussion of the Eitingon model of training and its principal dilemmas and problems. Reeder does not explicitly address the French training model, but many of his critical points as well as constructive suggestions remind Sahlberg’s line of thought in his target essay.
Reeder’s central point concerns what he calls ‘the superego complex’. The complex comprises two substructures: ‘the professional superego’ and ‘the institutional superego system’. The first is an intrapsychic and private phenomenon, whereas the latter exists on a group level within psychoanalytic organizations. They mutually reinforce each other and constitute the complex, which has a particular force in psychoanalytic organizations, Reeder maintains. He writes: ‘the complex can be grasped only if we begin by accepting the splits, gaps, and separations on which it rests. There is an obvious distance between the intrinsic values of psychoanalytic practice and the manner of functioning so often characteristic of psychoanalytic institutions. I would say that this is basically a question of a conflict between love and hate.’ (p. 154) Reeder quotes Kernberg’s famous formation: ‘In my view, while psychoanalytic educators think they are transmitting what is both art and science, but they have structured their institutes so that they correspond most closely to a combination of technical school and theological seminar.’ (p. 226)
Reeder rejects Freud’s theory of a death drive ‘as a pseudo-biological and psychologically unconvincing speculation’ and suggests, instead, that hate should be taken as a primary psychic force together with libido. Like libido, hate needs an object, and only when it directed towards an object it may be perceived and recognized as hatred.
Reeder maintains that in psychoanalytic institutions hate prevails much as unrecognized. This is essentially connected with the training system, where hate lives in the first place as ‘immanent pedagogy’ below the level of explicit transmitting of analytical theory and practice to the candidates. Reeder points to this immanent pedagogy as a main reason for the superego complex: ‘The professional superego is that form in which the hate invested in the institutional superego is individually introjected through the immanent pedagogy of the training system and other organizational forms. Conversely, the superego system is that form in which the professional superego’s reservoir of introjected hate is externalized and allowed to take form institutionally. To the complex thus established, hate, in the interchange between superego and superego system, will function as an affective “glue” allowing the complex to survive coherently over time.’ (pp. 174–175)
More concretely such internalized hate manifests itself in personal attitudes and institutional forms, in the strict rules and difficulties in discussing their meaning, in the control of candidates and colleagues, in the subtle processes of election, in theoretical and clinical orthodoxy, and so on. In Reeder’s view, all this has very much to with the training analyst institution. This institution creates a hierarchy and a concentration of power that unnecessarily contradicts with the fundamental nature and aims of psychoanalysis: ‘Concentration of power and confidential information, together with the tendencies of splitting that seem to follow inevitably from the training analyst institution, is wholly unacceptable for the business which, at least by implication, purports to have as one of its main goals to safeguard “the good” of psychoanalysis’, Reeder formulates (p. 230). Beside this, he also argues for the independent personal analysis of the candidates, for the strengthening of the supervisory function, for the strengthening of theoretical work and research as well as teaching based on them. All these initiatives aim at weakening hierarchical structures that support the superego complex.
In the current debates concerning training similar initiatives are suggested, but rarely with such clarity about their deeper meaning. For this reason, and also because of its thorough historical presentation, Reeder’s book is important reading. Obviously, there is no unanimity concerning many of his claims and initiatives – as there is no unanimity concerning the claims of Sahlberg’s target essay. But, after all, by far more important and fertile than a silent consensus for psychoanalysis is an open discussion and argumentative debate. In order to promote this, we publish the target essay and the comments, with the wish that this discussion will continue also in the pages of the journal.
The current issue is the last one for me as the editor-in-chief of the journal. From the next issue on, we change position with Maj-Britt Winnberg from the Danish Psychoanalytic Society.