What Hath Freud Wrought? Current Confusion and Controversies About the Clinical Practice of Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Abstract

This article discusses the current state of psychoanalysis and the challenges to the fundamental premises of Freud's psychoanalysis by those who have shifted to relationship or so-called two-person psychologies in our field. The author begins by briefly describing a parallel to the recent history of psychoanalysis in the sudden rise and fall of scholastic philosophy in the 14th century. He then focuses on contemporary attacks on Freud's psychoanalysis as a science, based on the contention by two-person psychologists that free association by the patient and evenly hovering attention by the analyst are actually impossible. He reviews Freud's idea of psychoanalysis, discusses psychodynamic psychotherapy, both conceived as scientific treatment procedures, and describes the current assault on their metapsychological and epistemological foundations. Returning to the parallel between what happened to medieval scholasticism and what has happened to psychoanalysis, he examines why this happened, and the resulting fragmentation of psychoanalytic practice. The article concludes with suggestions for the integration of various schools of psychoanalysis, reminding us of Benjamin Franklin's warning: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

Practicing Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychotherapies in Developing Societies

“…According to Chessick, the core of teaching and direction should be the basic doctrines spelled out in Freud's several books, despite the many variations and inconsistencies and even absolute slips and cultural carelessness he shows in some occasions (Chessick). Also, Chessick proposes the combination of numerous schools of psychoanalysis rather than breaking up of psychoanalytic practice (Chessick, 2014). "Psychoanalysis remains relevant today because it has situated itself among the other disciplines as a hybrid science, not quite a pure hermeneutic on the one hand, and not quite a pure science on the other, while at the same time having proven to be both these things-and in doing so has revolutionized the way we think about human nature" (Fusella, 2014, p. 871).…”

La profecía de Freud: del psicoanálisis a la biología de la mente en el estudio del origen y tratamiento de la enfermedad mental

“…Chessick (2014), por su parte, presenta una revisión de cinco canales de recolección científica de datos en el tratamiento psicoanalítico: (a) el complejo de Edipo y las experiencias y fantasías infantiles que se recrean en la transferencia y vida del paciente, son útiles para iniciar la escucha psicoanalítica; (b) las relaciones objetales como organizadoras de las relaciones interpersonales actuales del pacientes son una herramienta en el tratamiento de las condiciones "borderline" o psicóticas; (c) la comprensión de el "ser-en-el-mundo" (punto de vista fenomenológico que sostiene que la sociedad forma al individuo) permite al terapeuta tratar pacientes con "problemas realistas serios" como enfermedades médicas; (d) la organización del self es útil en el tratamiento de los trastornos narcisistas; y (e) la contratransferencia como factor importante en la eficacia del tratamiento.…”

Apologia pro vita mea: an intellectual odyssey. Part One

“…But such studies did not seem to show much possibility, nor do I think they do today in spite of the great advances in brain research. Such practices as focusing on the amygdala to explain one's anxiety are committing a mereologic fallacy, as I have described it in a recent publication [18], one of my final contributions.…”

“…In this sense it is no longer possible to speak of truth or reality as Freud once did when he repeatedly presented psychoanalysis as uncovering "scientific facts." But in one of my final publications I tried extensively to establish that psychoanalysis is indeed a science with its own methods, its own area of investigation, different from any other science today [18]. I referred to Aristotle [62, p. 535], who began De Anima with: "To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world… If there is no such single and general method for solving the question of essence, our task becomes still more difficult; in the case of each different subject we shall have to determine the appropriate process of investigation.…”

“…This paper [18], which was given by invitation as the keynote address at the 58th annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry in New York on May 2, 2014 to a disappointingly small audience and generated very little discussion, constitutes my final words on the status of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. It apparently incensed the editors of the journal so much that the three of them published their disagreement in a paper that appeared right after mine.…”