The training analysis at a time when theory is in short supply

The author discusses the risks confronting the training analysis when origi nal theoretical production is lacking. In his view, little progress has bee n made since Freud's time in establishing a general science of the psyche b ased on Freud's interpretive method What has been transmitted is stared to be not Freud's method of discovery but the knowledge thereby, produced whic h has been handed down in the form of doctrines, defined as theory presente d as psychic fact. Hence analyses tend to apply theories rather than to dis cover unconsciouses. Some of today's most common interpretational aberratio ns are described and the author shows the powerful suggestive effect on pat ients of using doctrines as metaphors of psychic life. Where such a trainin g analysis is reinforced by a like form of theoretical reaching and supervi sion, candidates may uncritically assimilate the relevant theory. The autho r uses his concept of the reality-providing circuit to show holy belief in a doctrine imparted by the training analysis makes that doctrine appear as the ideological basis of psychoanalytic knowledge. He finally notes that, t heories being essentially heuristic instruments and not bodies of acquired information, the consequence of the current dearth of theories, which have degenerated into doctrines, is that the training analysis itself has come t o constitute the theory of training in many institutes.