Institutionalized self-experience-impossible or necessary? On the current debate on training analysis

The question whether institutionalized training analysis is impossible or necessary stretches back to adebate that started with Anna Freud's lecture at the 1938 Paris Congress and continues until today. As evidenced by the large number of publications advocating diverse and partly irreconcilable positions in the last few years, it is still unresolved. This article attempts to discuss these disparate views and set them in relation to each other. It first discusses the difficulties arising from the fact that training analysis is apersonal analysis taking place under institutional conditions. Special attention is paid to the question of the training analysts' power, and to the institutional envy elicited by the distinction made between analysts who are also training analysts, and analysts who are not. The discussion of the difficulties associated with the institutionalization of training analysis leads to the conclusion that the question is not whether, but how training analysis is institutionalized. Finally, several practical suggestions toward the further development and improvement of the quality of training analysis are put forward.