In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Psychoanalysis and the Academy:Practical Aspects and Philosophical Foundations
  • Vera J. Camden

The Committee on Research and Special Training (CORST) is a committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association, part of its Board on Professional Standards. It was established some fifty years ago to provide an avenue for those (including psychologists) who were not physicians to obtain psychoanalytic training; among the eminent analysts who obtained "waivers" for full clinical training are Roy Schafer and Erik Erikson. Today its primary purpose is to oversee the training of academics and any other non-mental health professionals who wish to become practicing psychoanalysts, though it also offers a track called "Research Associate," which provides an opportunity to undergo all aspects of clinical training but the actual work with patients.

It is important to note that the CORST committee grants waivers to one of the institutes of the American for the training of an interested individual—that is, the Institute obtains the waiver, not the prospective analyst. This means that the first step in the training of an academic candidate is the commitment of a local institute to that candidate's ambition to become a psychoanalyst. In the contemporary psychoanalytic scene, this committee, which had previously been a "gatekeeper" designed to winnow out applicants who sought training, now actively seeks to foster an interest in the practice of psychoanalysis among responsive academics. The committee recognizes that many scholars may desire to augment, intensify, or discover the roots of their psychoanalytic quest within clinical contexts. Without diminishing the interest and utility of psychoanalytic theory as it is employed to interpret culture and society in all its dimensions, it can still be emphasized that psychoanalysis is founded in clinical practice as well as in literary and cultural [End Page 601] knowledge. The two go together. Thus, opportunities for clinical experience in the practice of analysis—as both analyst and analysand—can generate profound and transformative insights into the human dimensions of this theory.

Practically speaking, training in psychoanalysis within an institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association or another similar training center typically requires at least a year of pre-clinical work to develop core skills in such areas as differential diagnosis, psychotropic medications, and therapeutic models. Commencing one's own analysis, however, is the sine qua non of all such preliminary training, as well as of being permitted to attend clinical case seminars. After completing this pre-clinical work, and at least a year of one's own analysis, one is approved to take one's first analytic case. Training takes many years and requires the demonstration to one's supervisors of an ability to conduct analyses of at least three cases with patients of both genders. Though academics do not typically develop full practices, it is customary that one will see individuals who are in psychotherapy and not interested in a four-times-a-week psychoanalysis, in addition to psychoanalytic cases. While not everyone is suited to or capable of the investment entailed in full analytic work, many people derive tremendous benefits from insight-oriented therapy. At the same time, many who start psychotherapy discover that undergoing a full psychoanalysis provides the in-depth transformation of their lives that they desire.

The sketch I have just given of the more practical aspects of opportunities in psychoanalysis does not address the philosophical foundations of the importance of psychoanalysis as it intersects with the academy. For, as I have consistently argued, the intersection of psychoanalysis with myriad academic disciplines fulfills Freud's vision of his nascent science, best laid out in "The Question of Lay Analysis." In this 1927 text, he makes clear that the future of psychoanalysis depends upon the constant enriching of this theory of mind with the most recent and most powerful contributions from all fields, from neuroscience to literature to anthropology. Freud was dismayed late in his career to see that his work was being made to conform to the strictly medical models that were for so long dominant in [End Page 602] America, though he also recognized that he could not resist this trend, and of course he was right. But times have changed and so has psychoanalysis in this country. It is...

pdf

Share