Personal Psychoanalysis
The goal of the personal analysis is essentially that of a therapeutic psychoanalysis with particular attention to the goal of freedom from personality factors that may interfere with the student’s ability to conduct psychoanalytic treatment independently. The personal analysis offers the chance for the study of the psychoanalytic process within the most experiential of laboratories, one’s own analysis. All candidates are required to begin a personal analysis with a Training Analyst of the Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute. Candidates make their own arrangements with an analyst of their choice. All training analyses are conducted with a minimum of four sessions per week. Some training analysts may recuse their analysands from the classes they teach, in which case other arrangements are made.
A period of personal analysis must be concurrent with a substantial period of the student’s supervised psychoanalytic work. The opportunity for the candidate to explore personal responses to the analytic situation (and the supervisory situation) while analyzing a patient is essential to his or her own development as an analyst.
The total duration of the training analysis is an individual matter determined by analyst and analysand. In the event that the training analysis is not proceeding satisfactorily, it can be interrupted by analysand or analyst. In appropriate circumstances the training analysis may be undertaken with a different training analyst. It is the explicit policy of this Institute that the Training Analyst observes the strictest confidentiality with respect to the content of the training analysis.
Training Analysts of the BPI