Some brief considerations on the relationship between theory and practice

The present crisis in models of training and in psychoanalytical education in general can be linked to the gulf that has come to be created between analytical theory and clinical practice. The paper(1) examines the historical facts that have led to this split and suggests the need to return to the models of Freud and Jung. Both these fathers of depth psychology stressed the dangers inherent in the dogmatic use of theory and both insisted that theory must always spring from and be able to account for clinical practice rather than vice versa, as is so often the case today. The paper also looks at how theory should be taught in our analytical institutes in order to ensure that what we transmit to our candidates is not knowledge in the form of dogma but rather a way of proceeding that will enable them to think creatively about their clinical practice and thus produce new knowledge, essential if depth psychology is to remain relevant to our post-modern culture.