Training in psychoanalysis in long sessions consists of a personal analysis in the strict sense, a training analysis, supervisions and regular participation in seminars.
The training course is divided in two parts: one takes place in session; the other out of session.
The training analysis
This takes place on the couch.
It is the heart of the training, where the trainee acquires the theoretical, clinical, and technical knowledge that will allow them to practise psychoanalysis in long sessions.
In particular, they will listen to some of the sessions recorded during their analysis, thus learning to follow the session material with its associative concatenations and repetitive lines, as well as when and how to intervene.
At the end of the training analysis, the trainee is qualified to exercise under supervision.
The supervisions
These accompany the first 1,500 hours of practice, which must include a complete analysis. The neo-analyst
must take regular stock of the progress of their work, especially with regard to resistances and to transference
and counter-transference dynamics.
Work experience in a psychiatric facility
This is required of trainees who are neither psychologists nor psychiatrists, in order to acquire an equivalent clinical experience.
The study of the work of Freud and the most significant authors in psychoanalysis.
In-depth seminars
These take place regularly and contribute to the refinement of clinical and theoretical knowledge.
Listening to the recordings: practical exercises for the future psychoanalyst
This is an essential aspect of the practical training of the psychoanalyst in long sessions: on the couch, the trainee listens to their own associations recorded in previous sessions.
In this way, they learn to recognise and decode the associative concatenation of the material of a session, that is, to follow the dynamic of the free associations and grasp the emergence of the themes which define the neurosis. They also learn to pay attention to silences and their quality, repetitive schemes and their context, vocal rhythm and tone, and affective outbursts, as well as to fluctuations in transference.
It is the moment when the analysand becomes their own analyst and acquires the means to practice the profession.