Between the Unconscious and Institutional Protocols: A Case Study on the Challenges of Psychoanalytic Practice in a University Psychology Training Clinic

Abstract

This study examines the challenges of psychoanalytic practice within a university psychology training clinic, focusing on the tensions between the ethics of the unconscious and institutional protocols. The aim is to report the experiences of undergraduate trainees during their professional practicum, confronted with the demands of a scientistic model. The methodology consists of a qualitative case study, based on direct observation and researchers’ field journals over the course of three semesters. The results highlight central conflicts, such as the requirement to produce detailed summaries of clinical sessions—which opposes Freud’s recommendation of “evenly suspended attention”—and the imposition of a fixed 50-minute session length, which contrasts with the “logical time” of the unconscious proposed by Lacan. The study also points to difficulties in managing transference with the clinic’s coordination, which at times interfered with case conduction. It concludes that, although undergraduate psychology programs aim to train psychologists rather than psychoanalysts, the practicum—structured around the tripod of personal analysis, supervision, and theoretical study—functions as a device of introduction to analytic formation, subverting institutional logic in order to transmit the ethics of psychoanalysis. The presence of psychoanalysis in such spaces is defended as a continuation of Freud’s desire to provide a public and accessible clinic.