[Organization of psychoanalytic institutions: psychoanalysis can't function without, psychoanalysis can't function...

Recently there has been much heated debate on the question of the effects of the institutionalisation of psychoanalysis on analysis itself and the significance and consequences of the decision of psychoanalysts to organise themselves in professional organisations. The author identifies two errors analysts are prone to make when dealing with institutions/organisations. One is to confuse psychodynamics with the dynamics of institutions, the other to look upon an organised professional grouping as a species of family to which one can turn for assistance and encouragement. To rectify this misunderstanding, the author calls for a strict distinction between two very different levels of reality. "Non-trivial machines" such as psychoanalytic institutes, characterised by a high degree of complexity, obey a logic of their own which cannot be grasped in psychodynamic terms or in analogy to family relations. Buchinger sees it as essential to learn to think and act in terms of structures as opposed to persons and relations. Such a learning process can only be successful if specifically psychoanalytic self-reflection is complemented by an appropriate form of organisational self-reflection.