What makes a psychoanalytic expert? In The Question of Lay Analysis (1926), the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud had this to say: every analyst needed to be analyzed herself; she needed to know about the theory of the unconscious and a bit about sexology; and she needed instruction in “the history of civilization, mythology, the psychology of religion and the science of literature”—what counted as humanistic education, or Bildung. Without the latter, the analyst would have no understanding of the psychological material presented in her clinical practice. The final requirement stands out because at the time there was no means for assuring that psychoanalysts could achieve it. That is why Freud indulged in what he admitted might appear as the “fantastic” suggestion of “a college of psycho-analysis.” Such a college would teach those subjects one did not study in medical school; conversely, it would leave out those areas of...

You do not currently have access to this content.