On psychoanalytic training

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE
Author/s Siegfried Bernfeld
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2026/3
Language Italian Pages 24 P. 393-416 File size 353 KB
DOI 10.3280/PU2026-003004
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After an Introduction by Rudolf Ekstein written in 1962, a lecture on psychoanalytic training given by Siegfried Bernfeld at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute in 1952 is published. Drawing on thirty years of experience at the psychoanalytic institutes in Vienna, Berlin, and San Francisco, Bernfeld highlights how the institutes gradually adopted a rigid, nonpsychoanalytic teaching model that focused on the teacher rather than the student. The bureaucratic shift dates back to the 1920s, when the need to formalize training and also to keep the psychoanalytic movement united led to training becoming increasingly rigid. While acknowledging that the institutes often produce competent analysts, Bernfeld denounces the strong background “noise”: for example, if personal analysis and supervision are conceived as mandatory courses (like anatomy in medical schools), their essence is distorted. Furthermore, by reducing the motivation of candidates to mere bureaucratic complacency, there is a risk of infantilizing them and hindering the autonomous and scientific development of the discipline.

Keywords: Psychoanalytic training; Training analysis; Supervision; Infantilization; Selection of candidates

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Siegfried Bernfeld, Sul training psicoanalitico (1952) in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 3/2026, pp 393-416, DOI: 10.3280/PU2026-003004