Rejecting both the emerging, anarchistic as well as the traditional – but ossified and socio-politically insensible – approaches to the formation of a psychoanalyst, the Institute for a Democratic Psychoanalysis offers an alternative. We are embracing today’s political moment, which calls for a radical and pluralistic democracy and a radical and pluralistic psychoanalysis.
A democracy worth its name cannot stand still, but must instead continually evolve. Part of its revolution today requires an embrace of emancipatory movements, the creation of a holistic political imaginary, and the abolition of extant atomistic politics. Anti-racism, environmentalism, feminism, psychoanalysis ….: none can afford to conceptualize and practice in isolation from each other.
As we must continually resist the ever-present threat of the rigidification of advances, we aim to continually evolve, as, inextricably, must democracy and psychoanalysis – including the Establishment, the very institution, of psychoanalysis.
At our present moment, we are deploying the following developments. We are maintaining, at least for now, the “tripartite model,” but with rupturing differences.
- First, a candidate’s personal analysis will have at least weekly frequency, with additional frequency determinations to be made by candidate and psychoanalyst together.
- Second, supervision, which will occur weekly and throughout one’s formation, can be of varying cases, of a single case, or a combination thereof.
- Neither a candidate’s analysis nor supervision are required to be undertaken with IDP Analysts, but instead may be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. That is, when one applies for IDP candidacy, and is already in analysis and/or supervision, those undertakings can be considered for IDP welcoming.
- Third, coursework will require at least one course per semester, to continue throughout study here; we are exploring relationships with other schools for their courses to be recognized as part of our curriculum; in that regard, and perhaps not so parenthetically, we are not requiring an adherence to any one psychoanalytic school of thought or practice. However, we must ongoingly engage in a rigorous disputation that resists “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
- Fourth, and of central and integrative inclusion, each candidate will participate in at least eight of the ten monthly IDP Community Meetings per year. It is here that we hammer out, together, the agonisms that are inherent in democracy. We aim for the inclusion of all members’ voices, for a constant guarding against tendencies to unrecognized censorship of all sorts. We aim for the truth that there is no “final truth” to either democracy or psychoanalysis, and that both must meet their moments in time.
The Institute for a Democratic Psychoanalysis (IDP) has been granted Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP No. 8070) status by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC). Classes that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. IDP is solely responsible for its course offerings.