The question of aims: Psychoanalysis and the changing formulations of the life worth living.

Abstract

This paper examines changes in the way psychoanalytic aims have been formulated over the years. I claim that these changes are, at least partly, the result of wide cultural and social processes that took place in Western society, seen here through shifts in the prevailing worldview (Weltanschauung). Following in the steps of the philosopher Charles Taylor ( 2007), this study describes 3 fundamental worldviews-the religious, the secular-humanist, and the postmodern-and claims that psychoanalysis adapts itself to shifts in the dominance of these perspectives. I demonstrate how, as each worldview gained ascendancy, a corresponding analytic mode appeared or gained credence, assimilating ideals of the "life worth living" as prescribed by that particular worldview and translating them into analytic aims. The modes described are classical psychoanalysis, relational theories, and a new emerging spiritually-sensitive psychoanalysis. The contributions made by each worldview to the development of psychoanalysis are discussed, as well as the ways each worldview hindered such development.

Psychotherapy for personal growth? A multicultural and multitheoretical exploration

“…Many psychotherapy models explicitly recognize the value of promoting personal growth in the service of improving clients' quality of life. In psychoanalysis, the therapeutic process is part of the life process of reaching life goals, implying continuous personal growth (e.g., Lev, 2016). Moreover, many contemporary psychoanalysts focus on the client's resilience from previous trauma, positive object‐relations, building on strengths, capitalizing on moments when the client is not caught up in the cyclical patterns, and has no impaired reflective capacity or is not behaving defensively (e.g., Wachtel, 2017).…”

Poetics of reconcilement: Psychoanalysis and dilemmas of faith.

“…The basic psychoanalytic technique doesn’t change following cultural changes, but the goals of analytic treatment are more sensitive to such changes, because they reflect, at least partly, the changing conception of what is commonly perceived as a “a life worth living” (Lev, 2016). As Blass (2004) wrote, according to many of the new writings on religion, from a psychoanalytic perspective, certain forms of religious belief and practice should be positively evaluated as a healthy development, an expression of a kind of achievement—emotional, moral, spiritual and cultural—that could be expected to emerge through a successful psychoanalytic process.…”