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There has been an important announcement from the Officers of the IPA regarding the continuing discussion on teleanalysis. Please note below:

“The question of if or how teleanalysis will be recognised in IPA training after the pandemic is unsettled. At the beginning of the pandemic, the requirements for in-person analysis of candidates and control cases were lifted due to the global emergency. In April of this year, it was agreed by the Board that remote work begun during the pandemic would be credited toward graduation and new work after the pandemic would be guided by formal educational standards. Further, exceptions to in-person clinical work would continue until the WHO declared an end to the pandemic. Since then, there has been an undulating level of uncertainty regarding when or even if the pandemic will be declared over. In the context of advances in vaccinations and boosters, many analysts have returned to in-person treatment; others have not returned to the office when/where uncertainty about physical safety persists. This situation exposes the ongoing question related to this transitional period: what do we do now?

There are matters of significant concern. First, the IPA has an ethical responsibility to analysts-in-training and to their patients to avoid a mandate that interrupts an ongoing treatment. Second, there is a majority view that in-person experience is vital to psychoanalytic training. While some constituent organisations are in regions where remote training would be a welcome way to grow the profession in distant areas, others are in regions where teleanalysis is seen as antithetical to the clinical method. Herein lies a lively example of regional, and also intraregional, differences. At the same time, all the regions share the goal of supporting and growing psychoanalysis.

The question of best practices in training must remain a matter of broad reflection. The Psychoanalytic Education Committee (PEC), Society Presidents, the IPA Board of Representatives, and individual members need to be involved in the Task Force on Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Times (TF2) project of considering recommendations for potential changes in training standards. Meanwhile it is the responsibility of each of us to remain devoted to listening to one another. As psychoanalysts we are aware that being seen, listened to, and recognised, sustains development and creative thinking. It is our way forward.”

Harriet Wolfe
IPA President