THE LETTER 48 (Autumn 2011) pages 31-45.

This paper deals with the question of the difference between didactic analysis and the formation of the analyst. It is based on a reading of the historical development of this topic from Freud to the present day. It recalls how some of the earlier leaders of the psychoanalytic movement took a different path to the one that Freud had wished for – the result of which has seen many splits in the psychoanalytic movement, not all of which have been propitious.

Keywords: didactic analysis, formation, Freud, Bernfeld, Lacan, Safouan. 

One hundred years ago in the Summer of 1911 Freud’s Psychoanalytic notes on the case history of Schreber case were published. There are many lessons to be learned from President Schreber’s account of his unbearable suffering and Freud’s analysis of it. Many times he felt so anguished he longed for death.  Many times he looked out to the end of the world searching for a fixedpoint, some place he could findhis moorings, he felt his soul was murdered and what do we do when this happens?