Models of learning and psychoanalytic traditions can reform be sustained in psychoanalytic training?

Abstract

This paper presents a series of training vignettes which suggest that a subtext of defensiveness regarding exposure to our patients, fear of feelings, adherence to an unwritten set of rules, and a profound need to control our way of thinking and working pervades the way psychoanalysis is taught and practiced in many settings. The paper explores the way in which the basic culture of psychoanalysis, and the manner in which psychoanalysts are socialized, may make these kinds of episodes commonplace. The paper suggests that a paradigm shift that has been taking place in psychoanalytic clinical thinking has not yet affected the training process because of the danger that the new paradigm might undermine the safety, clarity, and ways of knowing that our traditional theories and clinical practices have provided.