Psychoanalysis under fire and the construction of analytical identity

Abstract

This communication tries to reflect upon a cultural climate that tends to understand emotional suffering as a brain disease and to portray psychoanalysis as an outdated and non-evidence based pseudoscience, questioning its impact on the building of psychoanalytic identity. This reflection rests upon the experience of working as a psychologist in analytic training in a public psychiatric hospital and a private practice context. It will also address the nature of criticism of psychoanalysis and how psychoanalytic training faces external criticism.