ABSTRACT
Those who oversee a training programme must make plans in line with their philosophy of training in terms of elements, criteria and personnel. By contrast, arriving as a new trainee one comes with ideals and preconceptions but, basically, one is in the dark. I was no novice to theory and had already read and thought in detail about such matters as child development, pathology and projective identification, but what I found happening at the start of the training was a semi-involuntary letting go of preconceptions. I discovered that I needed to let myself be ‘in the dark’ once again and bring as fresh a mind as I could to what was happening.
