Otto Kernberg’s got street cred: a former President of the IPA, one of our more accomplished researchers, prolific author, training analyst and faculty member of the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center. So, when he has something substantive to say about psychoanalysis, about our discipline, attention should be paid.
And Kernberg has much to say. He spoke on “The Twilight of the Training Analysis System,” at the January American Psychoanalytic meeting and an abbreviated, yet pointed version is in TAP (Spring/Summer 2013). (Link below).
He is not a Johnny-One-Note. He critiques the TA System: “..fostering idealization, submissiveness, a paranoid atmosphere, splitting, mechanisms, rebelliousness…infantilization of candidates, dogmatism, fearfulness and lack of scientific development and creativity.” He argues articulately each of these phenomena in this and previous articles, but many psychoanalysts can confirm his findings from our own experences, or from Kirshner and others accounts of Institutes.
He also articulates our internal problems: “multiple theories without any methodology to assess their true value, professional isolation and an uninspiring educational system. Wallerstein adds that our candidates are trained too late in their careers and in too late evening classes.
Further, Kernberg describes negative reactions to institutional psychoanalysis in other countries, in addition to the acrimonious, unproductive US bopping between BOPS and the APsa Executive Council (and many members).
We may not agree with all of Kernberg’s proposed solutions, but read them, think and let’s pursue a more productive path towards vibrancy of our discipline.
Click Here to Read: Twilight of the Training Analysis System by Otto Kernberg in The American Psychoanalyst Volume 47 No. 2, 2013, pp. 3-4,