Training for the impossible? induction and identity formation among trainee teachers and psychoanalysts

This article explores the systems under which teachers and psychoanalysts are trained in England and how trainees in these professions are inducted into their respective cultures. Both of these were deemed as ‘impossible professions’ in Freud’s evocative phrase and the authors enquire whether the training and resulting process of identity formation make teaching and psychoanalysis particularly open to such notions of ‘impossibility’. The article acknowledges the complex and demanding routes offered to new entrants into these fields and how the person-centred aspects of both disciplines leave trainees susceptible to a certain professional and personal vulnerability. It is argued such vulnerability requires a particularly strong sense of belonging as part of the trainees’ formation of identity. Processes such as effective mentoring, supervision and peer support are critical to ensuring new entrants are able to complete the course of training relatively unscathed and with a balanced idea of who they are and where they stand within their respective areas of work.