ABSTRACT
One of the questions which analysts have often not asked themselves is, “Do I want to be a psychoanalyst?” Men and women have problems that they think are going to be ‘cured’; so they go to see an analyst to ‘get cured’. The question of embracing the psychoanalytic profession is not considered. It is assumed that they can be analysts and that therefore they want to be. But it is an open-ended question worth constantly asking yourself. There are other versions of it: Do you want to be a particular person’s analyst? Would you like to have another patient? Would you like to have another patient like the last one? You can consider which of the patients that you ever had are the ones with whom you have had the most rewarding experience. It can be something of a surprise to find which are the ones you find most rewarding and what sort of person you must be to like that kind of patient. That is another reason for regarding the question as open-ended; you do not stop learning something about yourself.
