The Role of Psychoanalytic Studies in Psychotherapy Training

Abstract

The future direction of psychotherapy training and research in this country will be determined to a great extent by the relationship between training bodies, which are mostly in the private sector, and the universities, the vast majority of which operate in the public sector. There are compelling reasons why universities will be the prime movers in determining the nature of this relationship, and indeed prime movers in determining the nature of psychotherapy as an academic subject: government funds will increasingly become available to grant‐assist university trainings; government grant‐assisted institutions are subsequently more likely to receive work from other government institutions such as the health service, social services and education; from the trainee's point of view, the overall costs of training, including personal therapy and supervision costs, will be grant‐assisted in university psychotherapy courses, thus making them more attractive propositions than private sector trainings. Even if government policy changed, and a North American‐style student loan system was introduced, universities would still be state subsidised, and more likely to attract outside funding than the private sector trainings. This logic obviously explains both the attractiveness and seeming inevitability of university validation for trainings in the private sector.