Psychoanalytic Identity: Psychoanalysis as an Internal Object

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed description of the psychoanalytic identity, whose nucleus is the psychic representation of psychoanalysis in the internal world of the analyst—i.e., psychoanalysis as an internal object. Psychoanalytic training is, of course, crucial to the development of a psychoanalytic identity, but as a result of ambivalence, the psychoanalytic identity is apt to be diluted both during training and after. This process is reinforced by the worldwide trend for analysts to analyze fewer cases. The so-called crisis in psychoanalysis, usually referring to the problem of too few analytic patients and too few analytic candidates, is first and foremost a crisis in ourselves and, in particular, in our psychoanalytic identity. The author presents examples and causes of an unstable psychoanalytic identity, along with suggestions for ameliorative measures.