Reconciliation: The Continuing Role of Theory

Abstract

Abstract:The author regards this lecture-event as a symbol of the rapprochements currently in process, brought about by the need to close ranks due to a period of theoretical fragmentation and decline. Just as the original breakthrough of psychoanalysis a century ago was its theory of understanding, the fate of that theory is paramount in the process of consolidation and reconciliation during the present recovery phase. Splits are caused by ideas and people. Theory has grown by steady accretion, and by a parallel subjective process frequently based on flaws and fallacies. Comings together, often in the service of survival, can be on a base as flawed as the original separations, and miss the opportunities to correct previous irrational developments in theory. The author advocates a total composite psychoanalytic theory as the common ground to unify the field and restore its previous inspirational quality.If there is one over-riding new idea that survives this century of psychoanalysis, it is that every human action has meaning. Following this thread, I will begin by asking "Why am I here, on this platform, today?", "Why me?", or "why not some 30 years ago?", and "why now"? I do not mean me personally, but an individual with my composite titles 1 , in the Yet when I was called over half a year ago, I was not shocked, not even surprised, and thought immediately "of course", and was pleased and grateful at the turn of events.For the time had come. It was 2006, and a sea change had come about. We are at the present moment in a stage of recuperation and reconstruction, of rapprochements and refusions after a long period of fragmentation accompanied by diminution and decline. Some of the assessments in our recent history had become quite dire. As one contributor, in the Openline of the American Psychoanalytic Association, recently wrote, "We are dancing around the embers of a burning building". Exaggerated or not, it is to examine the numerous present comings-together to counteract this downward plunge that is my central chosen topic today.In doing so, I would stress that we continue to hue to the rational, that the criterion to be adhered to in this stage of reparative re-grouping be that which has always represented the central guiding principle of the psychoanalytic enterprise, the dominance of reality, consistency and the secondary process.To effect reconciliations, we need to remember what brought about the original separations that led to the groups who wish to re-join today. However, turning to the data of modern rapprochements, empirically I submit that analysts have hardly led by example in this new current activity, the gathering wave of the re-merging of forces. Psychoanalysis has 3 disappointed an expectant and receptive public in many ways during the century of its reign. I dedicate this occasion to the aim of not allowing this new, current segment of our history to become another missed opportunity, another stimulus to cynicism.The rational base of behavior, upon which our discipline bases its existence, ...

Lee Jaffe’s Unifying Approach to Psychoanalysis

“…Given his emphasis on the tangible, one might indeed wonder how much he also agrees with Rangell’s emphasis on an integrative theory (2008). After all, Rangell (2004) is unequivocal about there being but one theory:In the ongoing debate over “one theory or many,” I favor one total, composite psychoanalytic theory, unified and cumulative: total because it contains all nonexpendable elements, composite because it is a blend of the old and all valid new concepts and discoveries, and psychoanalytic as fulfilling the criteria for what is psychoanalytic.…”

A Prescription for Training

“…After I read two very interesting papers, one by Leo Rangell (2008) and the other by Arnold Cooper (2008), I thought that the pioneering attempt to bring about "a comparative psychoanalysis" made by Greenberg and Mitchell in 1983, notwithstanding the epistemological brilliance and sophistication of their proposal, would not bring about the change they desired in our way of looking at psychoanalysis as a discipline, so long as the history of psychoanalysis is not an essential part of the training of our candidates. Only a good knowledge of the history of psychoanalysis can allow us to strip its various dialects of some of their own distortions in our efforts to unite the various ways in which they illuminate a whole series of aspects of our experience into a unitary body of knowledge.…”