Introducing Psychiatric Residents to Psychoanalysis: A Visiting Analyst's Perspective

Abstract

The serious decline in applicants for psychoanalytic training mandates the attention of psychoanalytic educators. If students are to be drawn to psychoanalysis, creative methods must be employed to convey the vigor and excitement of work in the field. The author describes two experiences as a visiting analyst, in a university hospital psychiatric residency in which there is almost no regular exposure to psychoanalytic thinking. Because he was dissatisfied with an approach that stressed literature review and psychotherapy case presentations and supervision, he developed a teaching technique through which he was able to show the residents how he thought analytically and self-analytically. This teaching method is discussed in terms of Stein's (1988) injunction that analysts reveal more about the process of their thinking when they write, his description of how Bertram D. Lewin taught by encouraging analytic candidates to free-associate as a method of understanding new case material, and Arlow's (1972) view of the centrality of identification in education.

Can Psychiatry Residents Be Attracted To Analytic Training? a Survey of Five Residency Programs

“…Other authors have proposed particular ways of engaging residents in the classroom with creative teaching methods. For example, Sonnenberg (1990) discusses his experience as a visiting analyst at a residency program and the importance of demonstrating his "analytic self " to the group; this involved open discussion of his use of introspection and self-analysis. He presented some of his own clinical work and listened to residents' work with attention to unconscious conflict, resistance, and transference.…”

“…Other authors have demonstrated analytic principles and engaged residents using humor, surprise, and sharply delineated case material (Ingram 2006), group observation of analytic interviews (Blackman 1997;Cardoso Zoppe et al 2009), structured biomedical models applied to individual cases (Melchiode 1991), or integrative models that emphasize multiple ways of viewing the patient (Cabaniss 1998). It is helpful for residents to see how analysts use theoretical principles, how they can integrate a dynamic understanding of the patient with other treatment approaches, and how analysts use themselves and their reactions to patients in deepening their understanding (Cabaniss 1998;Cardoso Zoppe et al 2009;Sonnenberg 1990). Other techniques have been useful in enhancing psychodynamic learning, including defining learning objectives for psychodynamic psychotherapy supervision (Rojas, Arbuckle, and Cabaniss 2010) and discussing videotaped psychotherapy sessions in individual or group sessions with residents (Abbass 2004).…”

Stephen Sonnenberg on Sidney Phillips

“…In his 1973 paper, "Psychoanalytic Technique and the Ego's Capacity for Viewing Intrapsychic Activity," Gray emphasized that in the best case the goal of psychoanalysis was the promotion of self-analytic capability in the analysand (Gray 1973). Those who know my work are aware that I actively advocate for that position, and that I have done so by describing in a series of papers how that practice is a central part of my professional and personal life (Sonnenberg 1990(Sonnenberg , 1991(Sonnenberg , 1993a(Sonnenberg , 1993b(Sonnenberg , 1995. I see my own life and work as clear evidence that my analysis with Paul Gray was successful.…”

Commentary on Adele tutter’s “Design as Dream and Self-Representation

“…It is striking to me that I didn't recognize much of this before studying Tutter's work, because I have written about the analyst's use of selfanalysis in teaching, clinical work, research, and writing (Sonnenberg 1990(Sonnenberg , 1991(Sonnenberg , 1993a(Sonnenberg ,b, 1995, and for decades I have engaged in self-analysis regularly to enhance my performance in those areas, as well as to help me live my life as happily as possible. I have written of how conflict is reflected in the relationship between the analyst and research colleagues and research subjects (1993a), and of how the relationship of the analyst to a teacher from the past might influence clinical work in the here and now (1991).…”