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“Dear Institute…”: Candid Commentaries From Candidates in Psychoanalytic Training

Editor : Himanshu Agrawal

Reviews and Endorsements

In “Dear Institute…”, Himanshu Agrawal brings together an international collective of analysts-in-formation who offer us informative, thought-provoking, courageous accounts of their experience of psychoanalytic training. Both the structure of the book and the individual contributions integrate past and present, internal and external, individual and institutional points of view. A short history of the contributor’s institute is shared at the beginning of each piece. The institute’s current contributions to, and sometimes interferences with, the formation of a developing analyst are portrayed. The sum of the book’s parts inspires a serious look at the ingredients of training, formal and informal, that contribute to the formation of curious, creative, rigorous graduates. This book is a must read for analysts involved in psychoanalytic training and an enticing roadmap for those who consider becoming a psychoanalyst.
Harriet Wolfe, MD president, International Psychoanalytical Association

“Dear Institute…” is a wonderful gift to the entire international psychoanalytic community and beyond. The letters collected here from 40 analysts-in-formation from almost all regions of the world continue an intergenerational dialog that began with 42 letters from older psychoanalysts to the younger generation in “Dear Candidate…” and is now proving extraordinarily fruitful. Each letter is fascinating in its very personal description of the changing experiences, the struggle with hopes, wishes, but also inner doubts and external obstacles in psychoanalytic training, such as problems with the time available, the costs of training or institutional conflicts. The opportunity to talk emerges as groundbreaking for all these questions: both with older psychoanalysts and within the younger generation, at the local Institute and internationally within the International Psychoanalytical Studies Organization (IPSO). Critical and grateful comments are in a creative interplay. The diverse suggestions in this partly poetic book are essential for the future of psychoanalysis in a changing world. My thanks to all contributors!
Dr. med. Heribert Blass, president-elect, International Psychoanalytic Association

More than an answer, “Dear Institute…” establishes a rich and truthful dialog with all those interested in psychoanalysis.
Following the success of “Dear Candidate…”, this book presents a cartography of psychoanalytic training around the world. Here we find love, doubts, ideals, passions, gratitude and creativity, in short, a human and dreamy perspective on the future of psychoanalysis and a testimony to psychoanalytic formations.
With its unique wealth of images, “Dear Institute…” offers the reader dreams and distant lands, desire and thirst for knowledge, the past and the search for the unknown.
Happy reading!
Thércio Andreatta Brasil, president of the Organization of Latin American Candidates

Every future analyst has a home, a real "emotional residence" for his nascent Professional Self: that is, his Training Institute. And he has his own "analytic family" in which he grows both scientifically and humanly, reliving at a deep level the complex path of intergenerational transmission of skills.
The achievement of technical maturity and work autonomy will never cause him to lose his deep inner connection with this original training environment.
Those interested in knowing how a psychoanalyst is really trained should read this very book: they will then be able to understand "from the inside," from the authentic testimony of its protagonists, the challenging human journey that leads to the practice of this "impossible," fascinating, adventurous profession.
Stefano Bolognini, MD former president, International Psychoanalytic Association

This volume containing thirty-nine letters from analysts in training from different parts of the world is a crucial contribution to all of us who share a passion for the transmission of psychoanalysis.
Its diversity in terms of geography, time zones, languages and culture, is a remarkable testimony of the commitment to the analytic method and its practice around the world at difficult times following the pandemic, climate tragedy and wars.
The sincerity and honesty with which the writers of the letters share with us the positive and negative aspects of each of their formative experiences are really moving.
Together with “Dear Candidate…”, the book that inspired the editor to compile these letters they produce an effect of beauty similar to what in music is called counterpoint: the "art of combining, according to certain rules, two or more different melodies".
This book is a powerful contribution not only for those interested in psychoanalytic education but even more important for the sustenance of our discipline.
Virginia Ungar, M.D. former president, International Psychoanalytic Association

“Dear Institute…” is a remarkable book, inspired by “Dear Candidate…”, edited by Fred Busch, with letters from 42 analysts from all over to world about their own personal and analytic experience. “Dear Institute…” is written by 39 analysts in training from 29 countries across the world , candidly sharing their own experiences with their Institutes in the long process of becoming an analyst. As I was reading this moving and unique book, I relived my own analytic journey and had the double feeling of revisiting my past and listening to the thoughts and feelings of our younger colleagues. I strongly recommend this outstanding book that constitute , by its own merits or jointly with its inspiring one, a lively witness of the vitality and creative dialogue among minds, ideas, experiences and generations that are involved in the endless work of building psychoanalysis.
Prof. Dr. Cláudio Laks Eizirik, MD, PhD training analyst , Porto Alegre Psychoanalytic Society and former president, International Psychoanalytic Association

This book is 'a must to read'! Reading the vast collection of letters written by analysts in training from all over the world will not only immerse you in the memories of your own training, but it will above all introduce you to the richness and variety of what transmission of psychoanalysis today represents.
Each letter in itself written with deep thoughtfulness, honesty, and emotion relates an idiosyncratic experience that is both personal and collective of what the complex path “of becoming an analyst” represents. The reader will have the chance to discover the variety of the different training models around IPA community, with its strengths and vulnerabilities to be taken in consideration.
This book will be of great interest not only for the next generation of candidates, but also for the training analysts, institutes, and whole members of IPA as becoming an analyst is a lifelong process, an unending Odyssey!
Dr. Katy Bogliatto, MD, IPA vice-president elect