In the Teachers’ Lounge: Creating a Community Space for Psychoanalytic Teachers

Abstract

ABSTRACT The author describes how a teaching forum was started at his local institute, with the goal of helping to support and sustain faculty in their work as psychoanalytic teachers. Psychoanalytic teachers receive little training or mentorship, and there are few opportunities to discuss their classroom experiences, despite the challenges of shifting from the dyadic experience of the therapist’s office to the group dynamics of the classroom. The author discusses various challenges for psychoanalytic teachers in making that transition, while also considering how our awareness of the frame, the risks of idealization and transference can aid us as teachers. An example of a forum meeting about the use of assigned readings demonstrates how a focus on the process of reading can be a more effective form of teaching foundational psychoanalytic concepts than simply teaching content or concepts from papers.