Thoughts on Confidentiality for Directors of Psychoanalytic Institutes
Created by the IPA Confidentiality Committee
2025
Directors of Psychoanalytic Institutes confront an array of issues relating to confidentiality including a) protecting the confidentiality of candidates; b) protecting the confidentiality of the patients of candidates; c) teaching candidates about the necessity of confidentiality for the psychoanalytic process; d) creating an atmosphere within the Institute and Society where confidentiality of members and patients is valued; and e) addressing broader confidentiality concerns at scientific meetings. This document will describe some of the threats to confidentiality inherent in psychoanalytic institutes and suggest practices to mitigate these risks.
A: Confidentiality for Candidates:
Admissions : Before they are even accepted to a psychoanalytic institute, candidates are encouraged to explore their personal histories and unconscious motivations in the process of interviewing for candidacy. During the application process, candidates reveal much about themselves to multiple member analysts, both in written personal statements and during the interviews, and these interviewers then discuss the case with other members of the institute. This, then, while necessary in evaluating aspirants for psychoanalytic training, becomes problematic with respect to maintaining a sense of privacy for applicants who will soon be our students and colleagues. Therefore, institutes should minimize the number of people, including administrators, who have access to the applications. Conversations about applicants should be confined to what is truly necessary to discuss after the interview process in making the decision about whether a candidate is suitable for admission. For instance, the fact that the candidate is self-reflective is useful to share; the facts of their early childhood are not. Psychoanalytic Training: Once admitted, candidates present their clinical work in seminars and with supervisors, where they are often encouraged to include their countertransference experience. There will inevitably be an asymmetry of vulnerability between those who are applicants and candidates at any particular time and those who are in faculty roles, and yet, ultimately, we are all colleagues. We must balance our need to understand the psyches of those in training with candidates’ needs to trust that whatever they reveal in supervisions and classrooms will be treated with the utmost respect. This requires a “community-of-concern” 1 approach, in which safeguards (such as those described below, e.g. limiting the number of readers of case reports) are instituted to protect our candidates’ privacy. Supervisory reports : Like the recommendations for the admissions process, reports from supervisors about candidates should refer to the candidate’s work and not personal process. It may be that a candidate is having difficulty working with a narcissistic patient and the supervisor knows the candidate had a narcissistic father so that the countertransference is distorted by this. Ideally, the report would mention the difficulty but minimize to the bare necessity the details about why. The number of people reading candidate analytic case reports should be restricted—it is useful to have several readers in order to get
1 Glaser, JW (2002) The community of concern: An ethical discernment process should include and empower all people relevant to the decision Health Prog . Mar-Apr 83 (2) 17-20 cited in IPA Report on Confidentiality, 2018, p. 12.
1
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online