[4] The principle of an obligatory training analysis was formalized by the IPA in 1922, a strong lead being given in this by Sándor Ferenczi.
The controversial discussions within British psychoanalysis swiftly came to focus on the question of analytic training.
Lacan always maintained that "the aim of my teaching has been and is still the training of analysts";[7] and it was on this point that the controversies around him repeatedly focused.
Early criticism for shortening the length of training analyses, and exploiting the transference to build up a personal following,[8] blossomed in the demand by the IPA that his teaching "is to be regarded as null and void as far as any qualification to the title of psycho-analyst is concerned".
Adam Phillips quipped that "Psychoanalytic training became a symptom from which a lot of people never recovered";[11] Juliet Mitchell considered that it fossilised and froze the analysand in an identification with the analyst.