September 3, 2026

Reflections from the EPF Candidate Seminar in Brussels

From 19 - 22 February this year, the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF) held its annual Candidate Seminar in Brussels. The seminar, open to candidates in psychoanalytic training from across Europe, offered not only a structured scientific programme, but also a unique space for encounters, experiences and reflections on what it means to become an analyst, and a colleague, within a European psychoanalytic community.

This was the third time the EPF organised the seminar, which has already become an appreciated supplement to the formal curriculum for many candidates. The seminar is subsidised by the EPF, which keeps the participation fee low. The encounter with colleagues from other cultures also creates a space in which national characteristics become visible.

The overarching theme of the seminar was formulated in two questions:

How to become an analyst, how to become a colleague?

The seminar opened with a plenary session in which we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves: our names, professional backgrounds, and expectations for the days ahead. It resembled an opening ceremony, with presentations, repetitions of what others had already said, and a certain nervousness about speaking up in a large group. At the same time, such rituals fulfil an important function: they support the establishment of safety and recognition. Faces are linked with names; each participant tests their voice and experiences its resonance in this new space. The sound of one’s own voice confirms one’s presence. As faces acquire names and all voices are heard, the sense of a group slowly emerges: we are all participants here, sharing a common, if varied, position as candidates.

In the absence of a detailed presentation of the programme, our expectations may also have expressed our own projections. This opened a space for articulating what we sought from the group itself, rather than only from the seminar’s potential planned or theoretical content. Some had more modest expectations, such as learning how psychoanalytic training is organised in other countries. Others expressed more visionary hopes, for example for a stronger European understanding and dialogue in a time marked by war and political conflict. The Norwegian delegation expressed, among other things, a wish to deepen our acquaintance with European colleagues and to experience ourselves more clearly as part of a larger, shared psychoanalytic community.

A clinical case was presented, and the subsequent days were organised around small-group work, culminating in a final plenary discussion. The small groups, each comprising around ten participants, were initially led by training analysts. The seating arrangement was circular, and the agenda and focus were largely left to the groups themselves, within the broad frame of the seminar theme.

The beginnings of the group work were marked by both excitement and a certain unease: How would this turn out? The groups developed along some shared lines. In the initial phase, we were occupied with more concrete and organisational topics, particularly how training is structured in the different countries. We were also clearly pleased to be together, and many looked to the training analyst present for help in breaking moments of silence or for support in introducing new topics.

Gradually, the conversations became more personal and more confrontational. Feelings of insecurity were expressed, disagreements emerged, and several participants experienced that the group was moving closer to something more direct and honest. Later, the group leaders withdrew, and the groups continued on their own. This transition itself became a subject of reflection: the shift from dependence on the figure of the training analyst towards greater mutual responsibility among the candidates. In several groups, participants expressed a wish to maintain contact after the seminar, and digital groups were set up. In this sense, the seminar also functioned as an incubator for enduring networks among future psychoanalysts.

The composition of the groups, with candidates from different countries and from societies with varying admission procedures and structures of psychoanalytic training, created a particular form of a “third space”. Being “outside our own home”, outside our own societies, provided a surprisingly free space, a space some participants said they missed in their own countries and organisations. Discovering a larger psychoanalytic community in the EPF, with room for free association around important themes and around the experience of being a candidate, the costs and the value it provides. Being candidates from diverse national and institutional backgrounds opened a potential space for examining differences, while simultaneously supporting a shared sense of belonging. With psychoanalysis as a common reference point, it became possible to consider how our respective cultures and institutional histories shape our professional identities, yet without losing sight of the underlying continuity of psychoanalytic thinking and practice.

Becoming an analyst appeared less as the attainment of a fixed “destination” and more as a continuous process: a navigation between one’s inner personal work and the complex realities of professional membership within psychoanalytic societies. Psychoanalysis is also a lived experience, something that continues throughout life, a journey toward becoming more authentic while preserving the freedom to unfold. The experience of being together in silence and exchanging free associations and ideas was reminiscent of the free space of the consulting room. Our training provides us with literature and orientation, something to hold on to. At the same time, we must find our own way as analysts in formation, which involves moving beyond the “idealisation” of the profession, of training analysts and supervisors, to find our own personal and creative voice.

Throughout the seminar, both a group process and individual processes were at play. We worked as a group while each of us sought our own individual identity, each with our respective backgrounds from different institutes and societies. It became clear to several participants that the histories of the psychoanalytic societies are often carried forward, sometimes unconsciously, into the present of the candidates. Transgenerational conflicts and dynamics emerge in seminars, in supervision, and in intergenerational meetings within the societies. Bringing these dynamics into view, in a space located outside the local organisation, offered an opportunity to explore them with a certain degree of freedom and distance. A recurrent theme was the question of responsibility: how candidates may find an active position within their societies rather than remaining passive recipients of institutional legacies. Doing nothing is also doing something. The realisation that we need to step outside our own societies in order to reflect on their dynamics and conflicts felt important. At the same time, we were reminded of the responsibility of bringing these experiences back to our own societies and helping to create spaces and opportunities there as well.

In addition to the seminar itself, Brussels had much to offer. Some of us had time to visit the Magritte Museum. René Magritte (1898-1967) was a central Belgian surrealist painter. One of his most famous works, La trahison des images, shows a pipe accompanied by the text “Ceci n'est pas une pipe” - “This is not a pipe”. With this image, Magritte draws our attention to the distinction between the symbol and what is symbolised. In a way, this also opens up the possibility of symbolising what has not yet been symbolised -including within our own unconscious. Magritte is said to have remarked: “To be surrealist is to banish the notion of déjà vu and seek out the not yet seen.”

Interestingly, a popular claim arose in the 1950s that Sigmund Freud supposedly said something related: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” The expression is commonly used to suggest that not everything requires a deeper symbolic meaning. There are, however, no reliable sources showing that Freud actually said this. In popular culture, the saying perhaps functions more as an ironic comment on the image of the solemn psychoanalyst who always searches for hidden meanings. The claim suggests that the symbol is not necessarily a symbol; it may also simply be an object. There is a certain relief in this, in not having to relate to what something might potentially symbolise, and thus also to what it might stir up in our own unconscious.

At a more abstract level, action, reaction and counteraction were also a theme during the seminar. Among other things, we asked how conflicts manifest in the different psychoanalytic communities across Europe. In several countries, multiple psychoanalytic societies have been established due to conflict, and candidates must navigate both professional and institutional tensions. Being a candidate involves not only relating to one’s own training, but also to the societies one belongs to, and to the surrounding society. From one generation of psychoanalysts to the next, new tensions arise. Some conflicts fade, while new dividing lines emerge.

The European Psychoanalytical Federation is housed in a building in central Brussels, with spacious, beautiful meeting rooms. One of the Norwegian participants commented on how pleasant and impressive the premises were. One of the organisers replied: “Yes, it is beautiful -and this is your house as well.” This remark encapsulated an important aspect of the experience: the sense of belonging to a shared European psychoanalytic house, in which national differences are held within a larger common framework. For many candidates, this contributed to a strengthened feeling of being part of an extended psychoanalytic community, and of having a place - both symbolically and concretely - within the European psychoanalytic landscape.

Ingvild Øia, Janne Marit Larsen, Ingvild Alshus, Martha Kristine Andersen, Kristin Fjelnseth Wold.