ABSTRACT
Much of the uneasiness about psychoanalytic training has stemmed from the power exercised by training analysts and training committees, and, as a consequence, students’ fear of failing. Any misuse of this power is usually more from habit than from ‘mal intent’. David Tuckett has also proposed important recommendations for the assessment of psychoanalytic competence which, amongst other things, could help to protect students from being evaluated on their character rather than their competence. Kernberg also shows that he had been shocked by the extent to which psychoanalytic students are subjected to pressures that inhibit autonomy and creativity. As a result, he was inspired to write, with deliberate irony, as if this inhibition of students might be a primary agenda of the training. The power of the training analyst over students in analysis does not operate only in the consulting room; it can also infiltrate into other aspects of a psycho-analytic training.
