How to train psychoanalysts in our time? Exploring controversies around teleanalysis

The question of how the next generation of psychoanalysts can best be trained is as old as psychoanalysis itself. Currently, there is intense debate within the IPA regarding whether and how teleanalysis should be integrated into psychoanalytic training. The IPA Board has approached the Research Committee (RC) to launch a systematic research project to investigate this question. The RC proposed conducting an action research project. Action Research (AR)-in contrast to "traditional research"-emphasizes the processual nature of insights gained through a professionally facilitated exchange between polarizing groups. AR can contribute to defusing or even resolving complex institutional conflicts characterized by passionate emotions by bringing latent conflicts, fantasies and desires, personal and ideological, professional and personal beliefs, as well as prejudices and fantasies about opponents' intentions to the table, thus opening them up to individual, institutional, and public discussion and critical reflection. In the context of the IPA Congress in Lisbon in July 2025, a first action research cycle was conducted. This article reports on its findings. The course and outcomes of the discussions at this meeting were summarized in a report, which was subsequently systematically refined by all participants in several steps through a process known as expert validation.