The future of psychoanalytic institutes

Authors
Citation
D. Kirsner, The future of psychoanalytic institutes, PSYCHOAN PS, 18(2), 2001, pp. 195-212
Citations number
23
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology
Journal title
PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY
ISSN journal
07369735 → ACNP
Volume
18
Issue
2
Year of publication
2001
Pages
195 - 212
Database
ISI
SICI code
0736-9735(200121)18:2<195:TFOPI>2.0.ZU;2-#
Abstract
Both conceptual and institutional problems permeate psychoanalytic institut es. Although institutional problems are historically based, they also deriv e from confusions around ill-defined concepts that lead to arbitrariness, a uthoritarianism, and the stifling of creativity. Psychoanalysis is a humani stic discipline that is touted as a science but is organized as a religion. Problems surrounding the right to train pervade psychoanalytic schisms, an d transmission comes through processes of anointment. Institutional "false expertise" invokes the aura of anointment where training analysts pass down received truth through an esoteric pipeline depending on genealogy instead of function. Quasireligious thinking and politics rush in to fill the gap between the level of claimed knowledge that affords qualification and the f ar lower level of real knowledge. Institutes should rely on evidence of can didates' performance and engage in open-ended inquiry.