What's Possible? What Matters? Reply to Commentaries

Abstract

The three discussants agree that a definition of psychoanalysis tied to session frequency is problematic and needs to change. Yet none supports my recommendation to redefine the practice of psychoanalysis in terms of the practitioner's training. This prompted me to look more closely at my proposal and push my thinking further. I argue that psychoanalysis, like many other professions, needs to define its practice as the application of its complex and evolving knowledge and skill base, grounded in its unique field of inquiry. Although there are individual exceptions, the inculcation of this knowledge and skill base is generally best accomplished through psychoanalytic training. This assertion, however, rests on the premise that our training curricula keep pace with our rapidly evolving field of inquiry and knowledge. To further clarify my vision I examine the nature of psychoanalytic expertise. I suggest that such expertise amounts to the inculcation and integration of a large number of psychoanalytic frames of reference. I contend further that the nature of contemporary psychoanalytic theories is such that important psychoanalytic frames of reference are proliferating more rapidly than in the past, that the relationships among them are becoming more complex, and that consequently the application of psychoanalytic theory to practice is also becoming more complex. Psychoanalytic training programs need to recognize this expanding complexity and revise curricula and pedagogic methods on an ongoing basis to reflect this evolution within our field.

Notes

¹For analytic therapists who have not had formal training but have managed to acquire the equivalent through their own self-styled immersion, are as skilled as trained analysts, and wish to be so recognized, there should be certification mechanisms in place (e.g., the American Psychological Association's ABPP in Psychoanalysis) to recognize such analysts. When I say that those trained in psychoanalysis practice psychoanalysis I understand that the reverse is not necessarily true. That is, some therapists who practice psychoanalysis have not been formally trained.

²Things have evolved further since the early 1980s. Ogden's (1994) theory of the “intersubjective analytic third,” contemporary concepts of the “analytic field” coming from Europe and Latin America (Ferro & Basile, 2009), and psychoanalytic applications of non-linear dynamic systems concepts (Galatzer-Levy, 1978; Stolorow, 1997; Coburn 2002) all render even more complex our understanding of transference.