A Candidate’s Experience Doing Research During Training

Abstract

A psychoanalytic candidate explores his experience of participating in a research project at his institute during his training. The candidate has been a member of Sabrina Cherry’s prospective study of psychoanalytic practice and professional development conducted at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. While much as been written about candidacy from numerous perspectives, there is little in the literature about how being engaged in research affects a candidate’s overall training experience. In particular, attention is paid to understanding the benefits, synergies, conflicts, and tensions in combining research with such aspects of analytic training as the training analysis, control cases, supervision, classes, and institute life. A parallel is drawn between the listening and interpretive skills learned in order to practice analysis and the method of textual analysis employed in the research project. The author believes that his research training and the impact of the specific research topic have enriched and deepened his analytic training, while at the same time revealing certain anxieties in integrating research with the development of his analytic skills and identity.