Training analyst selection: the need for criteria

Training analyses are not the same as other analyses. Simultaneously analyzing and educating complicates matters. Historical events in psychoanalysis confirm this; modest recommendations regarding non-reporting met significant resistance. Training needs and psychoanalysis needs overlap and merge rather than remain distinctly separate. Powerful professional identifications exist, evoking a sense of "parents' rights" and privilege within the training analyst and Education Committee, and abrogation of candidate privilege. Historical cultural factors in the training schools served or serve as social reinforcers, perpetuating pressures to share data. Democratization of training analyst appointment procedures denies manifest training complexities. After graduation, clearly defined steps toward training analyst status should be outlined. These should include criteria for selection, encouragement to apply step-wise procedures to aid further development and sophistication regarding issues described, and dilution of power among many well-qualified training analysts.