Book Summary:

Over the course of his own training in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, Richard Raubolt came to see that advanced training is more often than not plagued by authoritarian practices, some subtle and many pronounced. It is the contention of Raubolt and his contributors that these practices instill fear and foster blind obedience to the favored proclivities of the leaders of the training institute. In turn this subservience, which seeps into the therapeutic relationship, prevents both the training candidates and their prospective patients from developing creative, authentic, and meaningful experiences.

This is a book written from the perspective of scholars and experienced clinicians who are acutely aware both on a personal and theoretical level of the disruptive role of power games in psychoanalytic institutes. The collection features a highly nuanced and comprehensively developed psychoanalytic understanding of the use and misuse of power, authority, status and control operating in many traditional and non-traditional training experiences. Finally, new supervisory and training models based on empathy, respect for subjective experiences, and democratic principles are proposed as an alternative to the abusive practices so powerfully described in this book.

Richard R. Raubolt Ph.D. is in independent practice offering psychoanalytic psychotherapy to adults. He specializes in the treatment of trauma and was special editor of an issue of Group entitled, “Charismatic Group Leadership: Theoretical and Ethical Issues.” Currently he is chair of the trauma committee for the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Education.