Reflections on training as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist: discovering the third space

Becoming a psychoanalytic psychotherapist is a deeply transformative process. It changes the way we understand others and gradually reshapes our relationship with ourselves. The training asks us to move through dense theoretical material while cultivating a steady emotional presence, and this mirrors the kind of work we hope to offer our clients.

The water we swim in

There is an old story about two fish passing each other. One says, “Morning, the water is warm today.” The other replies, “What’s water?” It captures something central about psychoanalytic thinking. We are often surrounded by emotional and cultural forces so familiar that we barely notice them. These include unconscious patterns, early relational experiences, the influence of the societies we grow up in, and the unspoken currents that shape how we relate to one another.

My training organisation and professional body, AGIP, encourages an open and plural way of thinking. Rather than committing to a single tradition, the training draws from a wide range of psychoanalytic ideas. Freud’s observations on transference and the unconscious, Winnicott’s thinking on holding and transitional space, Bion’s work on containment, and contemporary relational approaches all inform how we learn to listen. The aim is not to gather theories as if they were separate instruments, but to cultivate a way of thinking that stays curious about what lies beneath the surface of experience.

Cultural liminality and identity

For those of us who grew up between cultures, there can be a particular connection with the idea of liminality. Living across different cultural systems often brings a sense of existing in the spaces between them. David Henderson, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, described this as cultural homelessness. It is not only about geography. It can be a deeper feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once.

This in-between state can be difficult at times, but it can also enrich therapeutic work. It can help us feel at ease with uncertainty, attuned to multiple perspectives, and sensitive to the complicated ways identity forms. At the same time, it asks for careful reflection, especially when working with clients whose experiences echo our own. The familiarity can create empathy, but it can also blur boundaries if left unexamined.

Finding meaning in the third space

Training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy invites a continual dialogue between what we know and what we are discovering, between our theories and our lived experience. In the meeting point between these elements, sometimes called the third space, we develop the ability to hold complexity without rushing to conclusions. We learn to listen to the emotional atmosphere, not only the words spoken. We practise remaining open to the subtle shifts that happen in the room.

This work encourages us to face our own vulnerabilities and to recognise the limits of what we can fully understand. It shows us how our histories quietly shape our interventions. Over time, the training becomes more than an education in technique. It becomes a sustained journey of self-knowledge, where the spaces between cultures, minds and relationships reveal both the tenderness and the strength that define human experience.