Psychoanalytic training and research report - A positioning

In 2007 the authors, all of whom are politically engaged in the profession as members of the German Society for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatic and Deep Psychology (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Psychoanalyse, Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Tiefenpsychologie, DGPT) executive committee and/or federal or regional psychotherapy boards, formed a study group concerning training within the DGPT with the purpose of accompanying the "Research Report" as psychoanalysts. This report aims to evaluate the current range of training based on the specific psychoanalytic requirements for a qualified education. Especially given the possible revision of the Psychotherapy Act (Psychotherapeutengesetz, PsychThG), there is a need to investigate several aspects: the requirements for the access to training, such as type of university degree, the psychotherapeutic method employed and the organizational training structures at universities and institutes. Following the profession's theoretical stance and the results of empirical research on treatment effects, the authors elaborate on specific features of psychoanalytic competence while criticizing the hypothesis of the equivalence of psychotherapeutic methods. Various aspects of psychoanalytic competence are clarified and defined on the basis of recent publications. Several models of establishing psychoanalysis in university courses are discussed. The particular access to the unconscious requires an education that combines training analysis and theoretical courses as well as treatment and supervision experience. The concept of the psychoanalytic attitude involves more than psychoanalytic competence; it shows that "allegiance" can be understood as the result of "internalization" which develops from the experience of the effects of unconscious processes.